65 replies to this topic

[JC Daxion]

I see lots of talk about this new balance change. I dunno what to think at the moment as i will just wait to see how it all plays out. My first drops will probably be in a DK and one of my Firestarters, which were not really the issue that was being addressed. While yes quirks could drop the cooldowns again with them wanting to lean away from quirks and to some degree but that means a whole other pass, and a good month or more. But what if there is another option?


The biggest issue is the whole mix small/medium with large lasers for super high alpha burns. I know that people hate GH, but it does work and lower's alpha's or the ability to double alpha. I just have to wonder why all energy are not grouped up together at this point.

IMO this would solve a bunch of the high alpha issues with lasers, and i say this as a person that runs lots of laser mechs of all sizes.


Though i really would like to see ED revisited, I think it was a solid concept, just not worked out right in the first passes, that got compounded by tons of other balance changes being mixed in which muddied the waters. But with out going back to full ED which would take a while, why not just group up the energy for GH. It does work, even if it makes some mechs harder to play.. (nova and EXE i'm looking at you.. )

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

I don't see why ghost heat is really needed. The lasers already run to the breaking point on heat anyway if we're talking the high alpha builds with 6ERML+2HLL. The build could be completely destroyed just by increasing the heat per shot on the lasers a bit, though I don't really think it needs that done to it.

It already runs super hot and it already has a very long duration. I'd really just recommend increasing the torso twist speed on all mechs to allow for people to take advantage of the long duration of high alpha strikes.

[El Bandito]

Need to implement fixed heat ceiling. Heatsinks should only affect dissipation rate. Bam, no more incredibly huge alphas.

Edited by El Bandito, 16 October 2017 - 04:58 PM.

[Gas Guzzler]

Nah. Just sit tight, MW5 will be out soon.

[Queen of England]

Linking all lasers into the same group could work if they also increased the ghost heat limits. Something like this would rein in the worse laser vomit excess without killing lasers as a weapon.



Update: Set the max limit on Clan weapons to 15 and IS weapons to 9 to reflect what's actually possible with existing mechs.

Edited by Queen of England, 16 October 2017 - 05:44 PM.

[SeventhSL]

I agree that big alphas need to be controlled but I don't think that ghost heat is the correct mechanic to do this. In fact it should be removed and replaced with something that provides a better system of diminishing returns.

An example of this might be accuracy. Small alpha strikes could be more accurate so their small damage is more effective as it can be focused on specific components. By contrast a large alpha would be like a large shotgun blast so while it puts out a big damage numbers it's actual effective damage isn't much better.

The beauty of this over ghost heat is that it also helps Mechs which don't have great hard point locations. Exposing more of your mech to enemy fire isn't so crippling when that fire isn't entirely focused on your CT and some of it may actually miss completely.

IS players should really be pushing for mechanics like this instead of trying to match Clan at their own high alpha poke game.

[Shifty McSwift]

Ghost heat has always been a partially hidden weird sort of very specific and somewhat backwards ideal system. I wouldn't mind it instead applying across the board to all weapons to be honest, make ghost heat "weight" part of the weapon stats, and ghost heat maximums part of mechs stats, or possibly engine or size stats too.

Weight out everything, make it clear and obvious, while not being too restrictive overall.

Edited by Shifty McSwift, 16 October 2017 - 07:17 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Queen of England, on 16 October 2017 - 05:33 PM, said:

Update: Set the max limit on Clan weapons to 15 and IS weapons to 9 to reflect what's actually possible with existing mechs.

That shouldn't really matter; there are IS 'Mechs with more hardpoints available that have a moderately high chance of making it in (e.g. Raptor, Blackhawk-KU).

[InvictusLee]

Ghost heat was never a good idea and makes no sense.

Why would you ever endorse the idea?

[Bud Crue]

I really don't care what they do, as long as they leave it alone for at least 6 months after they do it.

Over performing, under performing, whatever. Just leave my stuff alone so I can build my mechs and know that they will play a certain way for a reasonable amount of time. I'm WAY more sick of PGI's BS nerf o the month "balance" crap and their accompanying BS rationale, than I am at specific weapons or mechs being nerfed.

Edited by Bud Crue, 16 October 2017 - 07:20 PM.

[Shifty McSwift]

November11th, on 16 October 2017 - 07:18 PM, said:

Ghost heat was never a good idea and makes no sense.

Why would you ever endorse the idea?

It is just a method of across the board restriction, beyond the hardpoint system, with the purpose of setting limits to potentials in light of the massive differences in hardpoint potentials etc.

Do you really want Kodiaks with 10 LPL alphas and stuff?

Edited by Shifty McSwift, 16 October 2017 - 07:22 PM.

[slide]

The solution, as always is a proper heat scale where things hurt, slow down, blow up etc when running too hot for too long.

Never been implemented and never will until every other idea and iteration of balance has been tried and failed. And probably not even then because PGI.

The whole alpha, coolshot, alpha, coolshot, alpha, hide behind a rock for 20 seconds play style has got to go if we want this game to represent even a small fraction of what Battletech is supposed to be. ie big stompy robots beating the crap out of each other for more than 6 seconds.

Alphas of all sorts will go away instantly if you stepped out from behind your rock and then couldn't move and see what you are shooting at.

[FupDup]

November11th, on 16 October 2017 - 07:18 PM, said:

Ghost heat was never a good idea and makes no sense.

Why would you ever endorse the idea?

There are times when PGI has ideas that rival or surpass the silliness of Spooky Heat itself.

Balancing around Spooky Heat means that PGI gets to feel like they nerfed certain "problem" builds without making the individual weapons suck popsickles through nerfs.

For example, the linkage of PPCs and Gauss in Ghost Heat did strongly contribute to the return of Laser Vomit, but imagine if PGI had instead just nerfed PPCs and Gauss directly so that you wouldn't even want to use them in any form (whether linked together or separate).

The TL;DR is that our Balancing Overlord™ has a way of setting the bar lower and lower over time.

slide, on 16 October 2017 - 07:23 PM, said:

The solution, as always is a proper heat scale where things hurt, slow down, blow up etc when running too hot for too long.

Never been implemented and never will until every other idea and iteration of balance has been tried and failed. And probably not even then because PGI.

The whole alpha, coolshot, alpha, coolshot, alpha, hide behind a rock for 20 seconds play style has got to go if we want this game to represent even a small fraction of what Battletech is supposed to be. ie big stompy robots beating the crap out of each other for more than 6 seconds.

Alphas of all sorts will go away instantly if you stepped out from behind your rock and then couldn't move and see what you are shooting at.

Suddenly, Gauss Rifles everywhere.

[DAYLEET]

There isnt enough mech/variant with only one type of hardpoint to justify having no negative side with boating. Boating will always be easier to use so there should be serious drawback.

They need to find a way to reward mech who field two weapon system and/or seriously penalise mech with one hardpoint type. Failing that, having 8 of srm/energy/balistic will always be the best option. Having two type of weapon should make sense from every point of view since only one weapon system will always have the advantages of being easier to use and focus/burst better. We only play lazily because the game wants it. ofc ill boat more of the same weapon if i only have + and no -.

[FupDup]

DAYLEET, on 16 October 2017 - 07:48 PM, said:

There isnt enough mech/variant with only one type of hardpoint to justify having no negative side with boating. Boating will always be easier to use so there should be serious drawback.

They need to find a way to reward mech who field two weapon system and/or seriously penalise mech with one hardpoint type. Failing that, having 8 of srm/energy/balistic will always be the best option. Having two type of weapon should make sense from every point of view since only one weapon system will always have the advantages of being easier to use and focus/burst better. We only play lazily because the game wants it. ofc ill boat more of the same weapon if i only have + and no -.

The downside of boating is supposed to be just the inherent drawbacks of the weapon being boated. Like, if you boat SRMs, you are useless outside of 300m or so (and realistically need to be within 200 for good spread). Boating ERPPCs means you'll reach your heat cap quickly and are thus vulnerable to being pushed while you cool down. Etc.

[slide]

FupDup, on 16 October 2017 - 07:28 PM, said:

Suddenly, Gauss Rifles everywhere.

Perhaps, but Gauss Rifles have been an outlier in every form of this game to date and quite frankly deserve their own solution no matter what is done.

In any event it isn't single weapons systems that are the problem, it is the ability to turn any weapon into a super weapon simply by mounting multiples of them. Every thing PGI has tried to date, ghost heat, cooldowns, more heat etc etc, just forces people to use the next least worst option. If you can't link 6ppc's then find a mech that can mount 2 PPC's and 2 Guass rifles or what ever is next in the least worst equation, this will go on and on until we are basically forced to chain fire everything.

So perhaps instead of trying to individually nerf every possible combination of super weapon we do something different. Let people make a choice, let them mount whatever they wan't, but if they fire everything, then they are going to pay a price. Either they blow up (in the extreme) or they suffer some other issue. Or perhaps fire your weapons in a more sustainable way and stay in the fight.

[DAYLEET]

FupDup, on 16 October 2017 - 07:58 PM, said:

The downside of boating is supposed to be just the inherent drawbacks of the weapon being boated. Like, if you boat SRMs, you are useless outside of 300m or so (and realistically need to be within 200 for good spread)

These are hardly drawback. Burst dps at either 200m or at 500m far outclass anything else.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

DAYLEET, on 16 October 2017 - 08:11 PM, said:

These are hardly drawback. Burst dps at either 200m or at 500m far outclass anything else.

Both get beat by an ERLL or ERPPC build that kites on any map that they can use that advantage, polar and alpine as some big examples.

In general the drawbacks really show depending on map, you'll be fine with SRM only on mining collective but its going to be a bad day for you on polar.

[Trissila]

Ghost heat should be removed, not expanded upon. It is a gross kludge that arbitrarily and unfairly punishes builds for being "too smart". It causes far more problems than it solves.

Laser vomit (I have no idea why this community insists on reinventing the wheel and coming up with its own specific cute term for laser boating, which has been around basically since Battletech began and certainly with the early Mechwarrior video games) exists because it's the next best thing after ghost heat arbitrarily clubbed other options into a non-viable abyss, like GaussPeeps and various poptarting builds and anything that involves more than one AC20-class weapon. When ghost heat specifically says "NO YOU CAN'T DO THAT" to any and every build that applies any sort of good PPFLD, huge laser alphas are about all you're left with.

Lasers are good. This has been true for the entirety of Battletech's existence. If you want lasers to stop being good, you need to stop pretending that you're a Battletech game and just throw all of the TT numbers out the window. All of them. Every single one. Kludges like Ghost Heat are necessary because you're taking numbers that were based for a dice-rolling table-top game and applying them to an action video game where players control their aim instead of hoping the RNG works out.

MWO further does even sillier things on top of that, like having heat sinks increase the heat cap. That shouldn't be a thing. Get rid of it and you get rid of a lot of heat-abusing shenanigans, no wacky arbitrary "the next weapon creates quintuple waste heat because we said so" nonsense required.

Look, lore 'mechs are bad. They've always been bad. They will always be bad, for as long as players are allowed to customize their 'mechs freely. 'Mechs were designed by the rule of cool or to fulfill fantasy battlefield roles in the TT game, and they only ever worked because you weren't allowed to do a lot of customization unless you got supernatural luck in your dice rolls at construction time, and RNG attack rolls put a cap on the effectiveness of any 'optimized' builds anyway. If you want the game to be nothing but lore 'mechs, that's fine, but in that case just turn off the customization and stop pretending that it's there while restricting it with a bunch of invisible razor wire under systems like ghost heat.

Edited by Trissila, 16 October 2017 - 08:48 PM.

[ocular tb]

Couldn't we just use a lower heat cap instead? Wouldn't that accomplish something very similar without using an expansion of a convoluted mechanic that this community has wanted removed since it came out many years ago?

Edited by ocular tb, 17 October 2017 - 12:03 AM.