38 replies to this topic

[Smites]

Negative Ghost Heat sounds suspiciously like a bizzaro-world version where PGI is a multi-billion dollar AAA company producing a wide variety of MechWarrior and Battletech games after the brilliant success of MechWarrior:Online, which at this point in the timeline has over 11 million active accounts.

[Pariah Devalis]

Yeonne Greene, on 27 August 2017 - 05:06 PM, said:

Eh, not quite. High heat can be countered by cool-shots, meaning you have a fallback when pushed. High heat also prevents you from using anything else. Cool-down means you are stuck waiting, period, if something pushes and the only way you can have a fallback is if you have weapons you didn't already fire.

What's important is that the window of opportunity for counter-attack has been widened.

I can see that argument. On the other hand, I can also see the argument that, once those cool shots are spent (and better coolshots than artillery spam ffs), you have a mechanic that can be exacerbated by flamers, and, otherwise, results in the same thing where you don't have the firepower on demand, except at extreme risk of heat death.

I don't really like either option, though. It's like trying to pick between anthrax or rat poison.

[Y E O N N E]

Pariah Devalis, on 27 August 2017 - 05:30 PM, said:

I can see that argument. On the other hand, I can also see the argument that, once those cool shots are spent (and better coolshots than artillery spam ffs), you have a mechanic that can be exacerbated by flamers, and, otherwise, results in the same thing where you don't have the firepower on demand, except at extreme risk of heat death.

I don't really like either option, though. It's like trying to pick between anthrax or rat poison.

A little bit. I don't really have a problem with the high alphas in the game, I have a problem with the fact that only one side gets them. The IS can mostly hold their own in a 1v1 poke, but this isn't a 1v1 game and Assaults (all assaults) are too slow to really twist those alphas away. Given two pilots of equal skill, I would bet on a Deathstrike winning over a Banshee pretty much every time.

There are several ways to help this out that don't involve nerfing the Clans, including buffing isMedLas/ERMedLas ghost heat to 8, giving their UACs much more generous jam characteristics, and some moderate hardpoint inflation here and there.

[SOL Ranger]

Any effort put into ghost heat related areas should be about how to best remove ghost heat from the game as fast as possible and add proper control mechanisms that do exactly what is required.

Ghost heat exists because they instead of solving something properly, as in adding proper control mechanisms to prohibit use of various alpha strikes or amassed firepower proactively, they used quick and easy band aid solutions that are both possible to circumvent in some ways, have little to no intuitive value, offer no fun gameplay, creates frustration, uncertainty and confusion and still allows TTK to remain lower than deemed reasonable.

Band aid solutions like that create more problems than they solve because they are almost always arbitrary and lack relevant and authentic structure where robust structure and also a feeling of authenticity for the systems is necessary.

Energy draw was simply ghost heat 2.0 that would have done almost nothing worthwhile other than normalised the heat penalty over all weapons, an improvement possibly, technically a waste of time more honestly when that time should be used to find an actual solution. A patch with a band aid solution that slightly may improve the previous band aid solution yet does almost nothing to solve the overall initial requirements or drawbacks regardless, it's unreasonable to put time on such things.

I think it's unfortunate that they put it indefinitely on hold as I am sure they could have remade it into something more reasonable given some proper and serious discussion about the subject in terms of proven game design concepts to manage such situations in a game.

When proper control mechanisms need to be implemented you implement exactly that, cutting corners causes massive issues especially when you start depending on what should be at most temporary solutions for a week or month, as inherent game elements that everything revolves and is balanced around in the end.

Ghost Heat has to go, and no half measure adjustments, band aids or sidegrade "improvements" should be allowed to waste any more development time, when that time should be used to design and develop a proper system to replace it all.

[Y E O N N E]

SOL Ranger, on 27 August 2017 - 06:47 PM, said:

I think it's unfortunate that they put it indefinitely on hold as I am sure they could have remade it into something more reasonable given some proper and serious discussion about the subject in terms of proven game design concepts to manage such situations in a game.

Your optimism is inspiring!

[Dimento Graven]

Yeonne Greene, on 27 August 2017 - 06:53 PM, said:

Your optimism is inspiring!

Actually I was in favor of ED because of statements made by Russ (which are probably worth every BYTES of this message I'm typing) was that once ED was in place they'd look into a dynamic heat affects table.

With ED indefinitely on hold, I suppose so is a dynamic heat affects table...

<sigh>

One of the three pillars of balance for BattleTech since it's creation, and they f'ing ignore the piss out of it.

[Y E O N N E]

Dimento Graven, on 27 August 2017 - 06:56 PM, said:

Actually I was in favor of ED because of statements made by Russ (which are probably worth every BYTES of this message I'm typing) was that once ED was in place they'd look into a dynamic heat affects table.

With ED indefinitely on hold, I suppose so is a dynamic heat affects table...

<sigh>

One of the three pillars of balance for BattleTech since it's creation, and they f'ing ignore the piss out of it.

TBQH, I don't care much for that. All that really does is create more of a snowball effect for 'Mechs that are already down, and that's inappropriate for this game type. Also, it makes zero sense; you wouldn't design your war vehicle to so poorly handle its payload.

I would much rather an actual power draw system, where high-energy weapons are capable of drawing more power than the reactor can put out and slows your cycle down. Low-energy weapons (i.e. conventional ballistics and missiles) would be necessary to keep up the DPS, which incentivizes greater mixing of weapon types.

[Dimento Graven]

Yeonne Greene, on 27 August 2017 - 07:01 PM, said:

TBQH, I don't care much for that. All that really does is create more of a snowball effect for 'Mechs that are already down, and that's inappropriate for this game type. Also, it makes zero sense; you wouldn't design your war vehicle to so poorly handle its payload.

I would much rather an actual power draw system, where high-energy weapons are capable of drawing more power than the reactor can put out and slows your cycle down. Low-energy weapons (i.e. conventional ballistics and missiles) would be necessary to keep up the DPS, which incentivizes greater mixing of weapon types.

WARNING: I'm going to capitalize words here. I'm NOT shouting, I'm emphasizing...

Well we disagree, it makes perfect sense for this game. The problem is that quite a few people have become spoiled and think that it's a god given right for them fire every weapon they have equipped every time they fire.

That's wrong.

We don't want an alpha-centric game, obviously, because it's what we have now and we all agree it's not working.

A dynamic heat affects table allows people to still fire alphas, just not so frequently, EVEN THOUGH, if they wanted to they STILL COULD BUT there would be TEMPORARY CONSEQUENCES for doing so.

Tired of moving more slowly, a jittery targeting reticule, a disappearing HUD, higher jam rates, etc., stop firing so much and cool off and the affects can dissipate and you can continue on.

It's better than any non-BattleTech derived solution presented so far...

[Y E O N N E]

I don't think we all agree that an alpha-centric game isn't working. From what I've been able to tell, the consensus at upper levels is more that PGI keeps demolishing anything that is capable of spitting out DPS either by cutting velocity, increasing jams, or increasing heat. As a result, the alpha-centric builds dominate the mid-range. And, with the combination of Skill Tree and new weapons, alpha-centric play received a massive shot in the arm. So, right now, alpha-centric play might be a bit too powerful because almost nothing can move across the map fast enough, or with enough firepower cover (because DPS was nerfed), to push on those 'Mechs.

And on a personal level, bracket-firing is not particularly satisfying.

[Dimento Graven]

Yeonne Greene, on 27 August 2017 - 08:15 PM, said:

I don't think we all agree that an alpha-centric game isn't working. From what I've been able to tell, the consensus at upper levels is more that PGI keeps demolishing anything that is capable of spitting out DPS either by cutting velocity, increasing jams, or increasing heat. As a result, the alpha-centric builds dominate the mid-range. And, with the combination of Skill Tree and new weapons, alpha-centric play received a massive shot in the arm. So, right now, alpha-centric play might be a bit too powerful because almost nothing can move across the map fast enough, or with enough firepower cover (because DPS was nerfed), to push on those 'Mechs.

And on a personal level, bracket-firing is not particularly satisfying.

Actually people need to think about what they're unhappy with, because ultimately it's been working out as follows:

1. They want to fire all their weapons all the time.
2. They want the OTHER guys to NOT be able to ALWAYS fire large alphas back at them.
3. They want the game to be balanced (as long as it doesn't affect #1, for themselves).
4. They don't want ghost heat.

Ultimately getting rid of ghost heat and adding a dynamic heat affects table does this.

You could still fire your alpha A LOT if you want, but THEN there'd be a temporary risk to it after the second or third time you do it in quick succession, getting steadily worse while continuing to fire alphas, or heat positive amounts of weapons, until normal shutdown (unless overridden and in that case we default to the current mechanic of damage and potential death).

[Y E O N N E]

Dimento Graven, on 27 August 2017 - 08:27 PM, said:

You could still fire your alpha A LOT if you want, but THEN there'd be a temporary risk to it after the second or third time you do it in quick succession, getting steadily worse while continuing to fire alphas, or heat positive amounts of weapons, until normal shutdown (unless overridden and in that case we default to the current mechanic of damage and potential death).

But, like I said above, that's kicking 'Mechs while they are down.

At a high level, the high-alpha builds are all about bursting down a single target, which they can do very well. But they do it at the cost of running hot, which means a team with enough cover DPS and just enough armor and speed to use it can push together on a poke position. If we also saddle those poke builds with yet more penalties like slow-down or HUD glitches, we deny them the opportunity to recover and make the risk too great to be worthwhile. And then we end up with a pure DPS meta, where we all spam for the highest sustained DPS.

Plus, and you will probably disagree with me here, that just makes Gauss (especially Clan Gauss) even more valuable than it already is relative to the rest of the AC line-up since it adds a large chunk of alpha potential for no significant heat. It's not like firing twin Gauss with just a quartet of ERML is particularly toasty, but it is still very powerful at 50/58 damage.

[Dimento Graven]

Yeonne Greene, on 27 August 2017 - 08:47 PM, said:

But, like I said above, that's kicking 'Mechs while they are down.

No, it's not, they get one or two for free, maybe even 3 or 4 if they have cool down modules, THEN they have to start actually THINKING of consequences for firing alphas every time they fire their weapons.

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At a high level, the high-alpha builds are all about bursting down a single target, which they can do very well. But they do it at the cost of running hot, which means a team with enough cover DPS and just enough armor and speed to use it can push together on a poke position. If we also saddle those poke builds with yet more penalties like slow-down or HUD glitches, we deny them the opportunity to recover and make the risk too great to be worthwhile. And then we end up with a pure DPS meta, where we all spam for the highest sustained DPS.

Yeah yeah what you're saying is you want to be able to do the missile/ac/laser vomit meta with no consequences, I get it, but if that's the case then double ghost heat because it's clearly not working well enough to keep people from ALWAYS firing nothing but alphas.

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Plus, and you will probably disagree with me here, that just makes Gauss (especially Clan Gauss) even more valuable than it already is relative to the rest of the AC line-up since it adds a large chunk of alpha potential for no significant heat. It's not like firing twin Gauss with just a quartet of ERML is particularly toasty, but it is still very powerful at 50/58 damage.

I don't necessarily find that a bad thing.

People keep wanting to keep gauss at the bottom of the AC line-up due to their own prejudiced ideas of what they think should be the weapon's rankings.

I have no problem increasing the importance of gauss if the result is people are being more 'thoughtful' about firing their weapons, instead of the nearly button mashing frenzy we have now.

[Y E O N N E]

Dimento Graven, on 27 August 2017 - 09:10 PM, said:

No, it's not, they get one or two for free, maybe even 3 or 4 if they have cool down modules, THEN they have to start actually THINKING of consequences for firing alphas every time they fire their weapons.

Then you'd have to start your heat penalties at 80%, which is where a lot of these big alphas end up after one shot.

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Yeah yeah what you're saying is you want to be able to do the missile/ac/laser vomit meta with no consequences, I get it, but if that's the case then double ghost heat because it's clearly not working well enough to keep people from ALWAYS firing nothing but alphas.

That's not at all what I'm saying. With DPS meta, alpha-strikes are irrelevant, I can fire many separate groups of weapons, nobody cares. It's all about quantity of fire, not quality.

And why, honestly, do you care so much about alphas? It sounds like you are pushing this for flavor rather than mechanical necessity. Which is cool, but don't try to spin it as anything but.

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I don't necessarily find that a bad thing.

People keep wanting to keep gauss at the bottom of the AC line-up due to their own prejudiced ideas of what they think should be the weapon's rankings.

I have no problem increasing the importance of gauss if the result is people are being more 'thoughtful' about firing their weapons, instead of the nearly button mashing frenzy we have now.

But it won't result in people being more thoughtful, they just alpha-strike with Gauss + lasers and get 5-6 shots for "free", and then the meta revolves entirely around 'Mechs which can do this.

And there aren't a lot of those.

[Dimento Graven]

Yeonne Greene, on 27 August 2017 - 09:22 PM, said:

Then you'd have to start your heat penalties at 80%, which is where a lot of these big alphas end up after one shot.

They end up that high because of ghost heat, eliminate ghost heat and we'll find that the heat of alphas is significantly different.

I'm DEFINITELY NOT saying "I want ghost heat AND a dynamic heat affects table." I am DEFINITELY saying, "Get rid of ghost heat altogether, and implement a dynamic heat affects table."

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That's not at all what I'm saying. With DPS meta, alpha-strikes are irrelevant, I can fire many separate groups of weapons, nobody cares. It's all about quantity of fire, not quality.

Quantity and no quality is ABSOLUTELY what we have now. 'mechs are being built with HUGE alphas... Didn't kill 'em with the first 60/80/120 point alpha? FINE, just fire another one as soon as the weapons are refreshed and go again, rinse repeat.

I do want QUALITY, and ALPHAs are NOT quality, they're supposed to be a last ditch "oh **** I'm about to die, well maybe if I alpha I'll take you out with me" kind of concept.

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And why, honestly, do you care so much about alphas? It sounds like you are pushing this for flavor rather than mechanical necessity. Which is cool, but don't try to spin it as anything but.

Why can't I do both? Ghost heat doesn't work, it's been bad and unintuitive and mostly broken since inception, it's a necessity to replace it, AND, replacing it with a dynamic heat affects table might actually resolve a lot of problems AND it will certainly add some flavor to the game.

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But it won't result in people being more thoughtful, they just alpha-strike with Gauss + lasers and get 5-6 shots for "free", and then the meta revolves entirely around 'Mechs which can do this.

I don't think so. I think that we'll still see all the vomit builds we see now as those will still have the potential for a one, two, or three alpha kill shot, we may simply see less of these and more random gauss+[something else] builds, but so what?

The difference is, if they do fire a lot of alphas and push their heat up, THEY WON'T BE DEAD, they'll just have to decide to cool off a bit to gain some of the top end speed back, or to get their reticule to settle down, etc., what have you...

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And there aren't a lot of those.

There's a LOT of gauss+[something else] builds, you just don't see them because with gauss you're trading a LOT of potential alpha power for a long range, low heat, moderate damage weapon. BUT, say if you load up a bunch of AC's OH WELL, then you got a machine you can belch out an endless stream of AC pellets for upwards of a minute for a horrific amount of DPS, or ONE LARGE BUNCH of high damage alpha, and all you have to deal with is heat. The way it is now, you can sit there at 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 for all 15/30 minutes of a match, and the game doesn't care.

That's the dumbest thing about MWO right now and has been for a long time(well maybe besides the f'up with MG's, but that's something for another thread)...

[AppleseeN]

The6thMessenger, on 26 August 2017 - 05:07 PM, said:

In light of the "nerf laser vomit" thread, I thought of myself a little tweak. I don't agree that Laser Vomits are OP, it's just that i have something against alphas be it laser vomits, gauss vomits, etc.

So my idea is that, what if the Lasers have a trend of exponential heat with respect to the alpha count. Now i know that's basic ghost-heat, but what if instead of integrating it to penalize the user, lets calibrate it to "reward" chain firing and partitioning lasers instead?

To put that into perspective, currently 6 C-ERML + 2 C-LPL does a whopping 57.8 heat alpha. But with the system, the combination of those would still result at a total of 57.8 heat. But individually, like the C-ERML originally doing only 6.3 heat a piece, would instead do only 2.50 heat. Like ghost-heat, having 2 C-ERML would result 5.00 heat, but with this system it would be something like 5.25 heat instead. The penalty would be negligible, but would stack with additional lasers, but just enough to do the old heat value we are comfortable with.

Basically, the ghost heat affects the lasers when fired 2+, while reducing the base heat of lasers when fired individually. And when shot at their original ghost heat limit, it would still amount to the same heat as they do before.

For example:

Spoiler

But, that's just an example. The actual trend would still follow the trend of the original ghost-heat penalties, and so possibly the individual heat could be a lot higher than the example. But that just explains the thought of the idea. It only "rewards" the alphas below the safe GH limit, but otherwise at the limit and above it remains the same.

Think of it as a Negative Ghost Heat system, where the GH system imposes exponential increase of heat above the limit, this system imposes exponential decrease in heat below the limit.

What do you think of that system?

[Khobai]

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instead an actual dynamic heat affects table should have been implemented, so that there would be risks and penalties to running hot.

then you would just force everyone to use gauss and other low heat ballistics all the time to avoid the penalties

thats not a good solution either.

[Karl Streiger]

Khobai, on 28 August 2017 - 05:01 AM, said:

then you would just force everyone to use gauss and other low heat ballistics all the time to avoid the penalties

thats not a good solution either.

who says that they are cool?

a pitty they are not able to see the potential behind the "energy draw" bar - not the system - but with the bar you could have two kinds of heat and there you could balance ACs vs Laser

laser heat is "system" heat, ballsitic and gauss are "weapon" heat - weapon heat cools slower - overheating weapon need to cool down and can't be fired.

So your ACs would lay a barrage at first and cool down a very long time after - were laser could deal average damage over time... so many options so little creativity to use them

[Methanoid]

El Bandito, on 26 August 2017 - 05:45 PM, said:

You think laser vomit is bad now, wait until September when PGI changes Operations skill nodes so that Coolrun and Heat Capacity nodes will factor in heatsinks. Laservomit will greatly benefit in general, and Clan las-vomit mechs will benefit more than IS las-vomit mechs, since Clan ones generally carry 1/3 more external DHS.

dont they need them tho due to running hotter weapons? my good old hellbringer runs 16x extra heat sinks, is skilled up for heat etc and it still runs hot in laser vomit mode.

[Y E O N N E]

Methanoid, on 28 August 2017 - 06:43 AM, said:

dont they need them tho due to running hotter weapons? my good old hellbringer runs 16x extra heat sinks, is skilled up for heat etc and it still runs hot in laser vomit mode.

Only because they also run dramatically greater firepower. You get better heat efficiency with 2xCLPL+5xCERML and 25 DHS than you can get with 3xLL+5xERML and only 19 DHS. The most heat-efficient high-power IS vomit 'Mech I've built is a BLR-3M using an LFE350, 2xLPL, 6xERML, and 22 DHS. That is the as close to an absolute limit that it gets and, against something like the Deathstrike, it is undergunned. Hilarious for deleting limbs on lighter 'Mechs, though.