171 replies to this topic

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Khobai, on 26 September 2017 - 08:36 AM, said:

uh no. you dont see mixed builds at all with ghost heat

Mixed builds in the sense of it mixing multiple weapons as opposed to just spamming the same thing.

Gauss vomit combines three different weapons due to ghost heat (Gauss, ERLL, ERML), if there were no such thing it would be down to 2. Laser vomit also uses 2 as opposed to 1 (either LPL or ERML are used to supplant alphas once you reach ghost heat limits).

Khobai, on 26 September 2017 - 08:36 AM, said:

you see weapons that are as similar or as complementary as possible without being linked in the same ghost heat group

That's kinda the point......ED didn't stop boating complementary weapons, it just shifted everything to boating DPS complementary weapons. What exactly is the problem with specialization again? It really doesn't fly in the face of lore so don't bother bringing that up because there were plenty of specialized mechs even in tech 1.

I don't think any of you arguing for bracket builds (mixed builds really are just mechs that mix weapons and types) really understand what it takes to make bracket builds an actual thing in any FPS environment.

Khobai, on 26 September 2017 - 08:36 AM, said:

mixed builds are builds that unnaturally combine dissimilar weapons in an awkward fashion. like an Atlas with SRMs, autocannons, and lasers is a mixed build.

if you want to encourage mixed builds then quirks need to stop rewarding people for boating. also there should just be a hard limit of 40 damage for how many weapons you can fire at once. if you try to fire more weapons than that, some of your weapons will physically not fire. the 40 damage limit would reset every 0.5 seconds. And maybe raise that limit above 40 for mechs that use mixed builds, to encourage more mixed builds.

Limiting alpha potential doesn't encourage mixed builds, it just stops burst/alpha damage from being a thing. It doesn't limit DPS which means dakka and ML rush spams will be the new Gauss/PPC. This is EXACTLY what happened in the ED PTS (granted the restrictions were much harsher, with roughly 30 damage every 1.5 seconds being the limitation).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 26 September 2017 - 09:38 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Gauss vomit combines three different weapons due to ghost heat (Gauss, ERLL, ERML), if there were no such thing it would be down to 2. Laser vomit also uses 2 as opposed to 1 (either LPL or ERML are used to supplant alphas once you reach ghost heat limits).

its not really what people consider a mixed build though. those weapons all complement eachother to the highest degree possible. thats an example of whats WRONG with the ghost heat system.

the term mixed build generally refers to mixing uncomplementary weapons like missiles, ballistics, and lasers all on the same mech. Like an atlas.

Quote

That's kinda the point......ED didn't stop boating complementary weapons, it just shifted everything to boating DPS complementary weapons

Yes ED was flawed the way PGI tried to implement it. We know that.

That still doesnt mean a modified variation of ED wouldnt work better than Ghost Heat though. Or simply just having a hard limit to how much damage in weapons you can fire at once.

Quote

Limiting alpha potential doesn't encourage mixed builds

it does if the mechs that use mixed loadouts get higher limits, which is exactly what I suggested

so an atlas might have a limit of 60 instead of 40 because it uses a mixed loadout for example

boating should be punished by having a lower limit. mixed loadouts should be rewarded with a higher limit.

so you can choose between having an easy-to-use loadout with a lower damage limit or a more difficult to use loadout with a higher damage limit.

thats how they need to balance boated loadouts vs mixed loadouts so both are viable. Instead of the current system which rewards boating more than anything else while mixed loadouts get penalized for no good reason.

Edited by Khobai, 26 September 2017 - 10:00 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Khobai, on 26 September 2017 - 09:51 AM, said:

it does if the mechs that used mixed loadouts get higher limits which is what I suggested

so an atlas might have a limit of 60 instead of 40 because it uses a mixed loadout for example

That doesn't help those mechs because you would never alpha them together because as you said, they are using disparate weapon systems. If they have higher alpha limits that just encourages specialization (for example at Atlases except the K and BH can do the MRM60-UAC20 build currently, and the BH can do 6 LPL with the higher limit).

The whole point of having mixed builds is that you are sacrificing competency in area for competency in another, which generally means you have less weaponry for that specific arena compared to another (or less sustained).

For example, let's look at the Timber Wolf D, lets say it got 5 JJs, and swapped the 4 SSRM6 for 4 ASRM6, and that the ERPPCs were high mounted. The limitation it has is that it simply doesn't have the tonnage to dedicate towards keeping the ERPPCs cool that it would just be a bad build because it simply isn't within the tolerance of sacrifice to compete with the poptart ERPPC Summoner. Now, increase its heat dissipation enough so that it has like ~80% (this number I just pulled out of thin air) the sustained of a SMN and you suddenly have something worth talking about, because it isn't sacrificing near as much to have decent firepower at both brawling range and long-extreme range.

That's what allows mixed builds to actually be relevant, sustained DPS because almost none of them will ever have the tonnage to actually compete with specialized build burst damage amounts unless they are at short enough range (which getting there is easier said than done).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 26 September 2017 - 10:05 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

That doesn't help those mechs because you would never alpha them together because as you said, they are using disparate weapon systems. If they have higher alpha limits that just encourages specialization.

you wouldnt have to fire them exactly together. you just have to fire them within the timeframe before your damage limit resets. that timeframe could be 0.5 seconds, it could be 1 second, 2 seconds, 3 seconds... etc... whatever value it needs to be set at so you can reasonably fire off all your different weapons.

and they would only get higher alpha limits if they have a mixed loadout. if you specialize them they would lose that bonus.

the whole point is to reward mixed loadouts and punish specialization. so why would you be allowed to get the bonus of a mixed loadout while using a specialized loadout? that wouldnt make sense. obviously thats not how it would work. the game would check how many different types of weapons your mech has then assign a limit based on that.

thats the point of a hard system vs a soft system like ghost heat. you cant exploit it. there are no loopholes. theres no way to game a hard system. it is impossible to abuse such a system.

Quote

The whole point of having mixed builds is that you are sacrificing competency in area for competency in another, which generally means you have less weaponry for that specific arena compared to another.

there currently is no point to mixed builds. theyre inferior to boated builds in virtually every way. that is why ghost heat fails so miserably. because it still allows boated builds to maintain a significant advantage over mixed builds.

Edited by Khobai, 26 September 2017 - 10:12 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Khobai, on 26 September 2017 - 10:02 AM, said:

you wouldnt have to fire them exactly together. you just have to fire them within the timeframe before your damage limit resets.

That still isn't good enough because adjusting for the different velocities is probably going to take around a half second anyway. Again, this is naive to think this magically makes mixed builds useful because at the same time, this just makes them useful at short range since these "mixed" builds are really bracket builds. Again, all this does is force them into a push roll just like dakka, it doesn't offer the actual flexibility you really want. Like my Timber D example, it too will eventually have to close, but because the competency of damage output is similar it can do so at a bit better pace. It can sit and trade for a little bit while trying to scout out a decent approach before it should begin to close.

Khobai, on 26 September 2017 - 10:02 AM, said:

and they would only get higher alpha limits if they have a mixed loadout. if you specialize them they would lose that bonus.

the whole point is to reward mixed loadouts and punish specialization. so why would you be allowed to get the bonus of a mixed loadout while using a specialized loadout? that wouldnt make sense. obviously thats not how it would work.

So then how do you qualify what a "mixed" build is? What's to stop me from throwing an LRM5 with no ammo or an MG with no ammo on a mech for it to qualify as a "mixed" build? Not to mention, not all mixed builds are created equal either, so then how do you deal with meta within the "mixed" build context because some combinations will ALWAYS be harder to use than others.

In the end, the real solution is to either accept that some combinations work well together and to try and encourage synergy in competing combinations or to nerf over-performing combinations or to make all weapons have the same firing behavior to increase synergy between weapons so that they are interchangeable with each other.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 26 September 2017 - 10:14 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

That still isn't good enough because adjusting for the different velocities is probably going to take around a half second anyway.

so increase the timeframe for the damage limit to reset beyond half a second. simple. doesnt have to be half a second it could be any amount of time. whatever amount of time is required for a mixed loadout to reasonably adjust its aim to fire all its different weapons.

Quote

So then how do you qualify what a "mixed" build is? What's to stop me from throwing an LRM5 with no ammo or an MG with no ammo on a mech for it to qualify as a "mixed" build? Not to mention, not all mixed builds are created equal either, so then how do you deal with meta within the "mixed" build context because some combinations will ALWAYS be harder to use than others.

like I said the game would look at what weapons you have and calculate a limit based on those weapons

weapons without ammo obviously shouldnt increase your limit. you could add an lrm5 with ammo if you wanted, but it wouldnt be worth very much as far as increasing your limit goes.

adding dead weapons just to increase your limit would ultimately not be worth it.

Quote

In the end, the real solution is to either accept that some combinations work well together and to try and encourage synergy in competing combinations or to nerf over-performing combinations or to make all weapons have the same firing behavior to increase synergy between weapons so that they are interchangeable with each other.

thats not a solution though. thats just resignation that the game will never be balanced.

if I could accept that, id be happy with the way the game is now, because its unbalanced now. but an unbalanced game doesnt appeal to me.

ghost heat is sh*t. it does not work. it does not accomplish what its supposed to or what it needs to. the whole system needs to be revamped entirely with a new system that cant be abused.

Edited by Khobai, 26 September 2017 - 10:24 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Khobai, on 26 September 2017 - 10:15 AM, said:

like I said the game would look at what weapons you have and calculate a limit based on those weapons

Again, how do you quantify that in a way that makes sense or one that can't be gamed? Is it simply by tonnage? Crit space? Damage? Heat?

And you are telling me this is somehow simpler than ghost heat? Just lol.

Khobai, on 26 September 2017 - 10:15 AM, said:

thats not a solution though. thats just resignation that the game will never be balanced.

No, that's resignation that this game simply is different from TT because firing behaviors are distinct and matter in this game. What you are wanting to do is to somehow quantify the difference between each firing behavior and apply a bonus to that mech somehow based on those disparate firing behaviors with all the context that applies as well (range, heat profiles, etc). Sorry, but that's not just beyond complex, that's asinine. All so you can have your lore ALL RANGES AND ALL SITUATIONS build somehow be as good as a specialized build, that's just stupid and absurd. This isn't about balance, this is about dealing with the realities of what this game is.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 26 September 2017 - 10:22 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Again, how do you quantify that in a way that makes sense or one that can't be gamed? Is it simply by tonnage? Crit space? Damage? Heat?

damage obviously because thats what were ultimately seeking to limit. And weapons that do PPFLD would be worth more than weapons that do duration or spread damage.

Quote

Again, how do you quantify that in a way that makes sense or one that can't be gamed? Is it simply by tonnage? Crit space? Damage? Heat?

And you are telling me this is somehow simpler than ghost heat? Just lol.

its much simpler than ghost heat yes

because it tells you straight up what your damage limit is

there is no convolutedness or obfuscation like with ghost heat. your damage limit is exactly what it says it is. there is nothing complicated or confusing. youre given a damage limit, you cant do more damage than that limit, simple as that. it doesnt get any simpler in fact.

Edited by Khobai, 26 September 2017 - 10:36 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Khobai, on 26 September 2017 - 10:29 AM, said:

its much simpler than ghost heat yes

because it tells you straight up what your damage limit is

there is no convolutedness or obfuscation like with ghost heat. your damage limit is exactly what it says it is.

Except how it increases is not simple. What is the difference between a cERML and a cSPL (because range and heat profiles means the tonnage required to use those equally is different despite being the same tonnage and crit space)? Why are LRMs worth different values than say an AC? That's no different from ghost heat and actually is just as problematic because tonnage/crit space needed for anything generating heat will change at a certain point (any build that requires more DHS and thus crit space than you can reasonably fit which makes energy boats have hard limits). This is the sort of thing you HAVE to quantify otherwise you have the same issue as Ghost Heat except worse because you aren't dealing with simple counts of weapons and groups. In practice sure, it is easy to use but that isn't where most of the complexity of ghost heat comes from either.

Then there is the fact this still doesn't make mixed builds viable, or at least bracket builds because as I said, most simply can't run high enough alphas to even justify that in the first place.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 26 September 2017 - 10:36 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Except how it increases is not simple.

that doesnt matter. the behind the scene calculations that the game does automatically for you dont need to be simple. those calculations will never even be seen by the player except as the end result.

all that needs to be simple is the end product. all the player has to understand is they have a damage limit and cant do more damage than that limit.

Quote

Then there is the fact this still doesn't make mixed builds viable, or at least bracket builds because as I said, most simply can't run high enough alphas to even justify that in the first place.

mixed builds arnt viable now though. so at worst its the same as now.

but at least it kicks boating in the nuts too, and theres a hard system in place that cant be abused like ghost heat can.

so just by virtue of boated loadouts being worse, mixed loadouts would be comparatively better.

Edited by Khobai, 26 September 2017 - 10:44 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Khobai, on 26 September 2017 - 10:39 AM, said:

that doesnt matter. the behind the scene calculations that the game does automatically for you doesnt need to be simple.

It does in figuring out the best builds which is the whole point of the mechlab. Anyone who just throws crap on their mech just to build it simply isn't trying. Do you not build around ghost heat? I know I do. This would be no different, I'm going to try and game it as best I can.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 26 September 2017 - 10:42 AM.

[LordNothing]

quad lgr is fun, at least on the pts, i dont own enough light gausses to do this for real yet. it seemed one pair would cooldown in the time it takes you to fire the other, and you could continuously rotate them. its a huge tonnage investment but i think it pays out.

[Khobai]

Quote

It does in figuring out the best builds which is the whole point of the mechlab.

no thats whats exactly whats wrong with mechlab, ghost heat, and the whole metamech mentality.

there should be no best builds.

if a game is properly balanced you can play pretty much whatever you want and not have to worry about being at a disadvantage.

that is the ultimate goal of balancing.

Quote

Do you not build around ghost heat? I know I do. This would be no different, I'm going to try and game it as best I can.

if all options are equal and balanced you cannot game it. that is the whole point of a hard system. every choice is equally weighed in such a system so that no choice is superior to any other choice.

virtually all of MWOs problems stem from the fact the game isnt balanced properly

Edited by Khobai, 26 September 2017 - 10:50 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Khobai, on 26 September 2017 - 10:45 AM, said:

no thats whats exactly whats wrong with mechlab.

there should be no best builds.

if a game is balanced you can play pretty much whatever you want and not be disadvantaged.

You aren't going to get around that. You are presuming you can correctly quantify the disparity between various firing behaviors such that you can increase the power of that mech based on configuration. That's not a plausible undertaking. There is a difference in the task of trying to balance the game such that the various specializations are equally useful and then there is this one is monumentally larger.

How do you balance the game in such a way, that a gauss vomit Whale is equivalent to the Fail Whale (cERLL, ERML, cERSL, cLPL, cMPL, cSPL, CGauss, cERPPC, SSRM2, LRM5, TAG, and I think some other weapons)? That such a ridiculous task that bares very little fruit.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 26 September 2017 - 10:51 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 26 September 2017 - 07:55 AM, said:

The question is whether or not that would be considered broken with Gauss/PPC since the MCII would also be a decent non-hero Gauss/PPC mech had it not been nerfed.


Is it though? The reason we had laesr vomit take over in the assault class was because there was no good PPC/Gauss mech that could replace the KDK-3 after it got nerfed, the MCII probably would've done just that. So the question is, would a 64 damage Gauss vomit compete with PPC/Gauss? I'm pretty sure the answer is no. Sorry but burst damage HAS to have higher damage potential for the heat compared to PPFLD to make up for the inherent inaccuracies of it. I generally think 50% more damage than that of PPFLD is a good starting point depending on the inaccuracy level. There is a reason laser vomit wasn't near as common during the PPFLD era and it is because it just didn't do enough damage to justify the exposure or inaccuracy (it also means you can't poptart, since lasers and poptarts just don't go together unfortunately).

Remove the ghost heat link on Gauss/PPCs and you'll see many things return back to Gauss/PPCs (Night Gyrs will certainly return to it). The MCII is the only question (do you go Gauss/PPCs, or Gauss vomit).


I'm willing to bet that dakka rushes are still the best in the IS, there just isn't as much experience with it because IS vs IS is not something you see. Either way I almost guarantee the IS is not as balanced as you seem to think.


There was a counter, it got nerfed, not to mention the problem with bringing in tech base balance into a different discussion.

I'm saying 64 for gaussvomit is about as high as you want. 80s+ is a real issue. I'd agree you want burst higher (yeah, 50% seems about right) than ppfld.

Dakka pushes are strong for IS in the right situation. From FW where you get some faction specific teams i can say absolutely dakka pushes are strong. However theyre either really slow (60 or less) and fat/wide (Mauler, MADs in the mix) or they're very jam-prone (UACs on RHGs/WHRs). Only the Mauler and WHR are symmetrical which makes most of them prone to neutering by high burst missile/laser builds. Yeah, you'll burn them down but it's close to mutual annihilation.

That's the difference. There's always going to be a meta, a best option. Right now though it's pretty far up the scale. Anything over 70kph with a decent poke laser build can kite and punish a dakka push and at least make them pay dearly for it. So can a good heavy brawling build. honestly with a decent bit of distance and the right cover (like defending boreal) you could take ATMs and really, really hurt a dakka push. Gaussvomit however just demolishes any other options. Especially when you start to get into the 80s for damage.

IS to IS balance isn't perfect. I don't believe in perfect balance. I just want reasonably close. I'm not saying you need to see MRMs and UAC20s in comp - the balance landscape for comp is always going to lean toward poke/gauss/laser unless brawl balance is all but broken. It's always going to favor high accuracy, best risk management, best damage for the range.

I'm just saying other options need to be close enough that it's not one-sided. Currently my 80+ gaussvomit builds are literally about 20% better win/loss in QP than anything else. Statistically for an environment like QP that's terrible.

Edited by MischiefSC, 26 September 2017 - 10:57 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

That's not a plausible undertaking.

people said the same exact thing about going to the moon. but we went there.

not only is balancing MWO entirely plausible but it's child's play compared to what we can accomplish if we dont get dragged down by people who constantly tell us we cant do things.

I think its more the fact that youre content with the game how it is because you dont want major sweeping changes that will upset the game by flattening out and reshaping the meta. whereas im sick of metawarrior online and having most mechs and weapons in the game belonging to an underperforming subset. That isnt balanced and it makes for a poor game experience IMO.

Its definitely plausible to have a balanced mechlab where all choices are weighed equally. Its simply a matter of defining the power level of each weapon based on statistical data pulled from thousands of games. And using that data to setup a hard system that prevents the better weapons from being abused while helping the underperforming weapons reach a higher potential.

Energy draw was very nearly there, it just had some major flaws, like the fact it was still a soft system. And the fact it didnt punish boating more than mixed loadouts in order to encourage mixed loadouts more. Also it overpunished assaults by capping their firepower at the same level as lights.

Edited by Khobai, 26 September 2017 - 02:33 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Khobai, on 26 September 2017 - 02:24 PM, said:

people said the same exact thing about going to the moon. but we went there.

LOLWUT, that doesn't make them remotely similar. I'm sure given enough time, a billion dollars, and enough smart people could potentially figure it out, but that simply ain't going to happen nor should it.

Khobai, on 26 September 2017 - 02:24 PM, said:

Its definitely plausible to have a balanced mechlab where all choices are weighed equally.

Except it isn't, you have many complexities at play here, as my Fail Whale example, which requires more fire groups that this game even supports let alone that the human brain can even utilize even at the slow pace this game plays. To do what you say, THAT'S the level of complexity you have to deal with. You have to balance based on what the human brain can even support at the given pace of MWO........yeah, that's not happening ANYTIME soon (I can only imagine the quirks it would take to make the Fail Whale usable, lol, those would be some absurd quirks).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 26 September 2017 - 02:46 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Khobai, on 26 September 2017 - 02:24 PM, said:

I think its more the fact that youre content with the game how it is because you dont want major sweeping changes that will upset the game by flattening out and reshaping the meta. whereas im sick of metawarrior online and having most mechs and weapons in the game belonging to an underperforming subset.

Don't assume, it just makes you look like moron because I want a more diverse meta, the difference is I'm ok with allowing specialized mechs be the thing and redefining their lore roles around where they should fit within MWO because I understand the complexity involved with trying to make the stupidest build you can possibly come up with actually useful in MWO would simply be not worth the effort required (I think the winner for stupidest build is still the 2 MG Atlas).

[Damnedtroll]

With a lowered cooldown it could be not to bad, but now it take to long for investment.

[panzer1b]

Khobai, on 26 September 2017 - 10:45 AM, said:

no thats whats exactly whats wrong with mechlab, ghost heat, and the whole metamech mentality. there should be no best builds. if a game is properly balanced you can play pretty much whatever you want and not have to worry about being at a disadvantage. that is the ultimate goal of balancing. if all options are equal and balanced you cannot game it. that is the whole point of a hard system. every choice is equally weighed in such a system so that no choice is superior to any other choice. virtually all of MWOs problems stem from the fact the game isnt balanced properly

I agree that there should be some sort of damage limitation implemented. I dont mind mechs that do boatloads of damage, but it needs to be made so that you cant just walk out of cover, and remove someone's ST in a single well placed shot that takes at most 1.5s to apply damage. Also, a global damage limit (pretty much ghost heat atop the current system, except it kicks in for alfa strikes above 50-60 (depending on what is deemed as too much alfa) regardless of what the weapon combo is, and becomes incredibly punishing as you exceed this (to the point where 70-80 alfa and you shut down instantly), and as you said, cant be exploited or bypassed by certain weapon combos like the current 2 HLL 4-6 ERML 2 GR boats without incuring some sort of massive heat penalty in the process.

I know everyone loves their 90+ damage delivered in an instant, but for teh sake of balance, this shouldnt be possible unless you spread the fire out over a second or 2 which still lets you murder someone, but not without exposing yourself to return fire in the process.

Also, i gave LGRs 1 more try, and nomatter how much i want to like em, they SUCK. The issue is that using em doesnt save you enough tonnage compared to normal gauss (at most you save 6 tons if u run 2), and their stats are atrocious even after the recent buff to DPS. 16 PPFLD is irrelevant unless its firing every 3 seconds or so, and compared to GRs which give 15 PPFLD for one, and 30 for dual, its a no-brainer choice. That and since the meta right now is pokewarrior, 15 PPFLD with a lower cooldown always beats 8 with a shorter cooldown, just like how HLLs usually beat ERLLs at mid range despite both having similar DPS.