65 replies to this topic

[Jay Leon Hart]

Mystere, on 17 October 2017 - 08:42 AM, said:

Smoke/chaff screens, radar distortions, EMP effects, IFF only with locks, HUD distortions, crippling artillery and air strikes, mines, inferno/napalm-based ordinance, weapon and equipment performance degradation due to high heat — I can go on and on but these will do.

Right, so of those, I would only class the smoke/chaff as a CC (blind), maybe EMP, depends on what it did.
Does it shut down your 'mech (Hold/Stun/Disorient)?
Does it put all your weapons on cooldown (Recharge slow) or lock them from firing (Disarm)?

Hm, you could argue the IFF only on locks is a sort of confuse, but if that's the base state, then not really. Also, that would require friendly targeting.

I was thinking more;
Blind - Smoke/chaff consumables, like you said.
Disable - PPC impacts, plasma wepons, maybe even flamers. Stops your 'mech from moving.
Slow - Leg shots impacting movement speed.
Disarm - Weapons being crit (but not destroyed) put on cooldown or stopped from firing.
Confuse - Consumable, disables IFF, affected 'mechs can target friendlies.
Knockdown / Knockback / Knockup - Go on, add it back in
Stun - Velocity weapon impacts (except PPC or Gauss), short duration, limited movement, can't fire weapons or increased weapon cooldown.

Not that I think these things would help the game, not at this stage in it's life, but that's what I think of when you say CC.

[Necro Ash]

The balance for Gauss has always been its explosion when crit happens. Question is that when structure and armor were doubled quite awhile back, was the explosive value increased the same percentage ? If not, that explains the "meh, it'll blow up but I can take it" attitude in some gauss builds.

Ghost heat, heat cap, dissapation, these are all parts of the issue. Adjusting a single number in a formula will not generally achieve the desired effect. We're not solving for X in this math, but trying to find an answer that "feels right".

Ah the wonders of the abstract.

[Khobai]

grouping up ALL lasers for ghost heat would make using small lasers even more pointless

maybe mediums and larges should be grouped for ghost heat. but there should be no limit on mixing small lasers with other types of lasers. small lasers are already massively limited as is by their short range.

Edited by Khobai, 17 October 2017 - 09:55 AM.

[Jun Watarase]

Necro Ash, on 17 October 2017 - 12:20 AM, said:

Exactly pointed out by quite a few people in this and other threads.

I suggested a 35 value as a cap. The amount of heat sinks has *NO EFFECT* on cap. The only thing that could raise it would be skills (max 15%, taking it to a whopping 40 yay). The only thing more heat sinks does is clear that 35 faster allowing a 'burst' again.

40 heat really isn't that much weaponry compared to current vomit based alphas.

2 HvyLgLsr + 5ErMed = 16+16+ (6.3 x 5) = 63.5, allowed currently but not with 35/40 cap.
1 HvyLgLsr + 3ErMed = 34.9 heat = allowed with 35 cap.

Problem solved, no ghost heat, no funky stats tweaking, provides a solid role for ballistic low heat weapons, and could lead to more interesting brawls where chain firing with a lot of heat dispersal changes the very nature of the "Splat, turn, Splat" fights.

Thing is...this just encourages people to go full UAC boat. For example lets say you fire 4x MPL + 1 UAC 20 and generate 33 heat.

Meanwhile a UAC 5 boat just charges you and holds down the trigger. You can only alpha him once before hitting heat threshold, he can just hold down the trigger and not care about heat. You will die or be crippled before you can cool down quickly enough to kill him.

UAC boats are already the weapon of choice when pushing since you can keep firing while most other builds have to retreat to cool down.

If all lasers were in one ghost heat group and the ghost heat timer was increased, that would discourage laser vomit due to excessive face time needed. Example : the 9 MPL EBJ currently has a face time of roughly 1.31 seconds. If the ghost heat timer was increased to 1 second, that jumps to 1.81 seconds which means much higher risk and exposure compared to running something that wouldnt trigger ghost heat.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Khobai, on 17 October 2017 - 09:51 AM, said:

grouping up ALL lasers for ghost heat would make using small lasers even more pointless

Unless they expand the ghost heat limit specifically for small lasers.

[Khobai]

i dont really think small lasers being mixed with other types of lasers is a problem

you have to get so close to use small lasers anyway

how many meta laser builds are abusing small lasers? its medium/large laser combinations that are causing all the problems. your 70-80 damage laser vomit alphas arnt coming from small lasers.

Edited by Khobai, 17 October 2017 - 10:18 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Khobai, on 17 October 2017 - 10:16 AM, said:

i dont really think small lasers being mixed with other types of lasers is a problem

you have to get so close to use small lasers anyway

how many meta laser builds are abusing small lasers? its medium/large laser combinations that are causing all the problems. your 70-80 damage laser vomit alphas arnt coming from small lasers.

The reason small lasers are group on the Clan side has nothing to do with large lasers, it has everything to do with medium lasers. Small lasers being group with larges are a side effect of mediums being a great middle ground requiring mediums to be grouped with larges and their code not supporting weapons being in multiple groups.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 17 October 2017 - 10:24 AM.

[Daurock]

Khobai, on 17 October 2017 - 10:16 AM, said:

i dont really think small lasers being mixed with other types of lasers is a problem

you have to get so close to use small lasers anyway

how many meta laser builds are abusing small lasers? its medium/large laser combinations that are causing all the problems. your 70-80 damage laser vomit alphas arnt coming from small lasers.

Clan smalls/micros are Already linked with the mediums, if memory serves. (And IS mechs don't have enough hardpoints to really take advantage of their Smalls not being linked with the meds) Whether the smalls do or don't get thrown in the same bucket would make little difference anyway. I'd be fine lumping them in with the rest for consistency's sake, though we may/may not want to revisit the actual limit for these lasers. (I'm curious what people think the allowable alpha for a bank of small class lasers should be, when compared to a bank of medium lasers. My personal preference would be a bucket of about 30 for the fast firing smalls, 35ish for the mediums, and 40ish for the large class lasers.)

And I agree, people mixing small and medium lasers aren't really the problem, so much as the people mixing the large/medium class lasers, such as the HLL and ERML (And you might be able to argue the isERML and isLL/LPL) That's the problem really attempting to be addressed here.

[Brain Cancer]

If you're gonna have to keep ghost heat:

1) Gauss is the universal spookyheat generator. The GH number for anything fired in sync with Gauss becomes 2, using the highest GH penalty for whatever weapons fire along with it. Fluffwise, it's such a power hog you end up having trouble firing it off with anything else.

2) Medium lasers and large lasers share a GH count (3 for IS, 2 for Clan). G'bye, 2xHLL/3ERML Hellbringer alphas.

3) Medium lasers and small lasers share a GH count, whichever is worse.

4) Small lasers and micro lasers share a GH count, whichever is worse.

5) Add another second to Gauss cooldown. Because right now, HLLs take longer to fire than anything else in the game.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Brain Cancer, on 17 October 2017 - 12:34 PM, said:

If you're gonna have to keep ghost heat:

1) Gauss is the universal spookyheat generator. The GH number for anything fired in sync with Gauss becomes 2, using the highest GH penalty for whatever weapons fire along with it. Fluffwise, it's such a power hog you end up having trouble firing it off with anything else.

2) Medium lasers and large lasers share a GH count (3 for IS, 2 for Clan). G'bye, 2xHLL/3ERML Hellbringer alphas.

3) Medium lasers and small lasers share a GH count, whichever is worse.

4) Small lasers and micro lasers share a GH count, whichever is worse.

5) Add another second to Gauss cooldown. Because right now, HLLs take longer to fire than anything else in the game.

1 and 5 would make Gauss worthless, hell 1 kills its usage, 5 just beats a dead horse. You would have to buff Gauss if you are going to say that it can only be paired by itself or another weapon that does a lot of damage.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 17 October 2017 - 01:03 PM.

[Brain Cancer]

It's an effectively no-heat weapon with impressive range and PPFLD. They're considered one of the most breakable weapons in the TT game. In MWO, it's 30 PPFLD right there. Even with GH, you're still getting the current HPPC/2x Gauss 45 PPFLD or 2xCGauss/CERPPC 40+splash PPFLD option that falls within reasonable heat levels, because Gauss give you no heat worth mentioning and even a 2xHPPC/CERPPC shot can be cooled without melting the robot. 45 damage PPFLD is just plenty, thanks.

Note I'm cheerfully choking alphas left and right anyway with the other GH changes too. Large/medium laser combos are the bread and butter of laservomit, and that goes away. You can still pull a bank of MLs out and zap things for up to 40ish damage pre-ghost heat, but again, that's it.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Brain Cancer, on 17 October 2017 - 01:41 PM, said:

It's an effectively no-heat weapon with impressive range and PPFLD.

Which is squandered if you don't have high heat weapons to combine with it. There is a reason no one cares about dual Gauss by itself and that's because it really just doesn't do enough damage by itself, especially in IS land where stacking AC5s is almost always preferrable.

Brain Cancer, on 17 October 2017 - 01:41 PM, said:

Even with GH, you're still getting the current HPPC/2x Gauss 45 PPFLD or 2xCGauss/CERPPC 40+splash PPFLD option that falls within reasonable heat levels

Except no one uses those builds for obvious reasons, because the heat constraint from the ghost heat still makes those undesirable loadouts.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 17 October 2017 - 01:55 PM.

[Brain Cancer]

Strangely, before we kept inflating alpha strike damage...dual Gauss was actually considered at one point to be A+ due to it's high ranged PPFLD, utterly irrelevant heat load, and would be just peachy on it's own.

Then we marched forward and now more than twice that is doable without going overboard. We went far,far too far.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Brain Cancer, on 17 October 2017 - 02:02 PM, said:

Strangely, before we kept inflating alpha strike damage...dual Gauss was actually considered at one point to be A+ due to it's high ranged PPFLD, utterly irrelevant heat load, and would be just peachy on it's own.

The last time dual Gauss alone was considered meta was during the era of the Gaussapult which was pretty much before DHS became part of the picture.

• Domination by the Gaussapult
  
• introduction of DHS and brawling era (Boomapult and Splatapult)
  
• introduction of HSR for direct fire and birth of poptarts and powerful long range boats
  
• ghost heat killing of everything that wasn't a poptart essentially
  
• Clan introduction and nerfing of poptarts ushered in gauss vomit era
  
• rebalance killed gauss vomit making way for dakka to reign supreme
  
• introduction of Kodiak bringing back ERPPC/Gauss and poptarts back to the fold
  
• nerfing of Gauss/ERPPC brings gauss vomit backs to the fore front
  
• <Future> Nerfing of gauss vomit brings back dakka and allows it to reign supreme for a while

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 17 October 2017 - 02:08 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

I still like the idea of expanding the sim characteristics of the game with an actual power pool that provides for both locomotion and high-energy electric weapons and needs to be managed. If your total energy draw (DIRTY WORDS!) goes over the limit, then everything needing that power gets it at a reduced rate to keep usage equal to generation (AKA, you run slower and/or your guns recharge slower).

You use the heat mechanic to limit absolute alpha sizes and force high DPS 'Mechs have to cycle out and cool-down within a reasonable time, and you use the power mechanic to simultaneously buff the usage of a few weapons on any weight class (i.e. base cool-downs are really short, but most 'Mechs using lots of hardpints will be operating beyond their power pool) while also allowing high-burst builds (e.g. 12x cERSL) to remain relevant, since power only affects recharge and if a weapon is ready, then it's ready.

Brain Cancer, on 17 October 2017 - 02:02 PM, said:

Strangely, before we kept inflating alpha strike damage...dual Gauss was actually considered at one point to be A+ due to it's high ranged PPFLD, utterly irrelevant heat load, and would be just peachy on it's own.

Then we marched forward and now more than twice that is doable without going overboard. We went far,far too far.

That was June 2014, and the event that did was called the Clan Invasion. Before, you basically couldn't use anything else with Dual Gauss because nothing with the range was light enough.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 17 October 2017 - 02:07 PM.

[Brain Cancer]

Quote

That was June 2014, and the event that did was called the Clan Invasion. Before, you basically couldn't use anything else with Dual Gauss because nothing with the range was light enough.

Point being, the game gets increasingly broken as we push alpha strikes to higher and higher numbers. Once you get past 50, things rapidly head towards ridiculous levels. And yes, with the extra tonnage we get to work with, weight isn't a problem for that first 30 damage, and all it takes to go further now is a variety of weapons, none of which GH with Gauss now.

Is it not logical that the weapon that ignores heat the most be the most incompatible with combined strikes that take advantage of said lack of heat?

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Brain Cancer, on 17 October 2017 - 02:20 PM, said:

Is it not logical that the weapon that ignores heat the most be the most incompatible with combined strikes that take advantage of said lack of heat?

Think of how many heat neutral builds work well in this game and you have your answer. I mean I suppose you could make it compete with AC5 boats but meh.

We have a slew of band-aids aimed at trying to limit Gauss outside of heat mechanics like how many Gauss you can charge up at one time or its fragility and explosiveness all so it can attempted to be balanced because it escapes the very thing meant to limit damage and even then it still breaks things enough that PGI has gone to linking it in ghost heat. Something should tell you that the problem is not the band-aids, but the fact that Gauss circumvents the very mechanic that limits damage: heat. Fix that and you fix Gauss.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 17 October 2017 - 02:42 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Brain Cancer, on 17 October 2017 - 02:20 PM, said:

Point being, the game gets increasingly broken as we push alpha strikes to higher and higher numbers. Once you get past 50, things rapidly head towards ridiculous levels. And yes, with the extra tonnage we get to work with, weight isn't a problem for that first 30 damage, and all it takes to go further now is a variety of weapons, none of which GH with Gauss now.

Is it not logical that the weapon that ignores heat the most be the most incompatible with combined strikes that take advantage of said lack of heat?

I'm just saying, it is literally only the Clans that have been pushing Alpha Strikes higher and higher. The IS 'Mech with the best usable pinpoint alpha is the Banshee 3S at 67 (70 if you use an XL). It has been in the game for a very long time. You could always build it to that point. I can't recall anybody ever having complained about it. Why? Because, no matter what, it is (pick two):

1. Too hot
2. Too slow
3. Too fragile

...all because the IS have hit their theoretical build maximum. An IS 'Mech that can build to that point damn well better be scary because it sacrificed quite a bit to get there and I see no need to lump an additional penalty on when it has many exploitable weaknesses built right in.

This is not the case with Clan Tech. Basically every complaint revolves entirely around the benefits of Clan Tech. Even standard mid-range IS laser vomit runs way hotter than the Clan equivalent and is, thus, easier to exploit.

As for that last statement, not necessarily. Is the weapon strong enough to stand entirely on its own against the combinations of literally everything else?

[El Bandito]

Mystere, on 17 October 2017 - 07:36 AM, said:

Say hello to masses of gauss rifles.

I literally responded to that issue on top of your post.

El Bandito, on 17 October 2017 - 07:10 AM, said:

Gauss can be checked by simply reducing its damage. IMO Clan Gauss by all means should do 12 damage, as it weighs only 12 tons. Perhaps buff other aspects in exchange. Gauss damage can be further reduced until it hits an equilibrium, post heat ceiling implementation. Simple.

PGI had already fiddled with energy and missile damage values for balance. It is high time for them to man up and change ballistic damage values as well. For balance.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 17 October 2017 - 08:17 AM, said:

How about we stop dancing around the real issue instead of nerfing damage? You know, the reason that Gauss is always combined with high heat weapons? The fact it has practically no heat for the damage. That is the entire reasons Gauss STILL has a foothold in the meta despite all the attempted nerfs against it (charge-up, explosive, long cooldown, etc).

Nah, its high PPFLD at long range is also an issue. The way I see it, reducing Gauss damage will help balance far better than increasing heat, cause mechs that only boat multiple Gauss don't care about increased heat.

Edited by El Bandito, 17 October 2017 - 04:35 PM.

[50 50]

You mean like implementing.... energy draw.... instead of ghost heat?

Sure.
Why not.