10 replies to this topic

[MechaBattler]

How would lowering the heat cap and raising heat dissipation effect weapons balance and gameplay overall?

I ask because I'm not the best person to answer that question. I know there are other people who have a better understanding of the numbers than do I.

[Gamuray]

Well, it would reduce laser vomit and help brawling some more... It would probably indirectly buff gauss-laser combinations. Some might say that gauss-vomit would be absolute again.. BUT! If you didn't let other weapons fire during charge up and during part of cooldown, it'd be countered.

Personally, I think lower cap and higher dissipation is a good thing since it'll force smaller alphas OR firing just part of your weapons. Lights may enjoy it too.. since they don't get hit as hard by it.

Edited by Gamuray, 02 November 2017 - 01:59 PM.

[Trissila]

It will reduce the size of alpha strikes and increase DPS across the board.

Depending upon how far you tilt the numbers on each end (cap vs. dissipation rate), you will either achieve little effect (Alphas will get a bit smaller but 'alpha up to the heat cap and then hide while you cool down' will still be a dominant strategy), or you will force everyone that wants to win into a DPS-heavy build.

There will still be a clear, mathematically-correct meta, and builds that do not play to that meta will still get stomped into the dirt.

You will never make lore builds good, if that is your goal (they have always been bad under every implementation of Mechwarrior). But you may achieve a different meta.

[Daggett]

Trissila, on 02 November 2017 - 04:12 PM, said:

There will still be a clear, mathematically-correct meta

The funny thing is that this will always be true whatever PGI does. The sad thing is that players will probably never stop to complain about meta in most competitive games.

As soon as a certain complexity is reached, mathematically perfect balance is impossible to achieve, a meta is unavoidable.
Even Chess is mathematically unbalanced because statistically white is OP, it wins slightly more often than black.

Trissila, on 02 November 2017 - 04:12 PM, said:

and builds that do not play to that meta will still get stomped into the dirt.

And this implies the only thing PGI can do: Balance the game in a way that the current meta will only be slightly mathematically better than everything else. In my opinion their goal should be to keep competitive players busy with regularly changing and evolving metas to figure out and min-max while preventing any such meta to dominate casual play.

So for the OP's question this means: When done right such changes can be beneficial to the game and tone down laser-vomit to a level which feels less dominating. But it takes much more thinking and calculating to get to a sufficient answer.

And as Gamuray wrote it could promote a new meta. Which would be okay as long as this meta is only significant in competitive play.

Edited by Daggett, 02 November 2017 - 04:57 PM.

[Khobai]

low heat cap is the exact opposite of battletech which has a high heat cap. wed just be moving away from the direction this game should be going in, which is more like battletech

battletech does have heat penalties though. adding heat penalties makes far more sense than lowering the heat cap.

Quote

It will reduce the size of alpha strikes and increase DPS across the board.

no it wont. people will just use gauss.

say you lower the heat cap to 30 like some nutjobs want.

2 gauss + 4 cerml = 58 damage alpha for only 30 heat.

congratulations not only do we still have huge alphas but youve just forced every clan player to use gauss/laser

what are you gonna do now? nerf the only PPFLD weapon clans have left? because clan players will just quit if you do that. guaranteed..

Quote

Some might say that gauss-vomit would be absolute again.. BUT! If you didn't let other weapons fire during charge up and during part of cooldown, it'd be countered.

then why would anyone ever use gauss? you might as well just delete it from the game if you do that. ridiculous.

plus why would anyone want to play clans anymore? cant laser vomit. no PPFLD. there is no reason to play clans at all then.

clan players would literally just quit the game outright if you did that crap.


rather than nerfing clans to the point where literally no one wants to play them anymore, it makes way more sense just to buff IS. make ISXL survive side torso destruction. and buff ISDHS so they have better capacity/dissipation than CDHS, which is fair because they take up 3 crit slots instead of 2.

to balance out laser vomit, you also probably need to link large lasers/medium lasers/gauss for ghost heat so the most you can fire in combination is 6 with no more than 2 large lasers in that combination.

and possibly add heat penalties to the last 30 heat on the heatscale. you should have a safety heat buffer based on the capacity provided by your heatsinks. and if you exceed that and go into the last 30 heat on the heatscale youd start suffering heat penalties in the form of movement penalties and cooldown penalties on weapons and it might affect other systems like sensors and targeting as well.

Edited by Khobai, 02 November 2017 - 05:29 PM.

[MechaBattler]

Trissila, on 02 November 2017 - 04:12 PM, said:

It will reduce the size of alpha strikes and increase DPS across the board.

Depending upon how far you tilt the numbers on each end (cap vs. dissipation rate), you will either achieve little effect (Alphas will get a bit smaller but 'alpha up to the heat cap and then hide while you cool down' will still be a dominant strategy), or you will force everyone that wants to win into a DPS-heavy build.

There will still be a clear, mathematically-correct meta, and builds that do not play to that meta will still get stomped into the dirt.

You will never make lore builds good, if that is your goal (they have always been bad under every implementation of Mechwarrior). But you may achieve a different meta.

Definitely not trying to make lore builds a thing. Simply trying to muse on the effect the changes would have. When was the last time they even tried? I know on the Energy Draw PTS they did try it. But by that point everyone had stopped playing the PTS and all anyone could talk about was ED. Before that I can't really remember them tweaking the heat system much. I vague recall tweaks to Clan DHS in the months after their release.

[FupDup]

MechaBattler, on 02 November 2017 - 05:07 PM, said:

Definitely not trying to make lore builds a thing. Simply trying to muse on the effect the changes would have. When was the last time they even tried? I know on the Energy Draw PTS they did try it. But by that point everyone had stopped playing the PTS and all anyone could talk about was ED. Before that I can't really remember them tweaking the heat system much. I vague recall tweaks to Clan DHS in the months after their release.

The issue with the ED PTS changes is that the heat dissipation buffs were tiny compared to the heat cap nerfs. And actually, the first few iterations of that PTS resulted in LOWER cooling because engine DHS got nerfed to equal external DHS (skill tree heat buffs were also nerfed).

Anyways, the reason PGI is afraid to do this is because:

Paul, in ATD #43 said:

Answer from Paul: There are no current plans to change the heat threshold towards TT values. Are we hard set against it? No, just at the moment there’s no need to do this.

Playing with a higher rate of cooling makes a lot more builds become heat neutral. A lot of heat neutral builds results in mid-range damage applied at a constant rate over time. This mechanism would be highly exploited by those with knowledge of building efficient heat neutral Mechs.

So basically, PGI doesn't want more mechs built around sustained damage output. Except they also don't seem to want big alphas either, which are the polar opposite of sustained. So basically they just don't want damage period.

Edited by FupDup, 02 November 2017 - 05:16 PM.

[Trissila]

FupDup, on 02 November 2017 - 05:14 PM, said:

So basically, PGI doesn't want more mechs built around sustained damage output. Except they also don't seem to want big alphas either, which are the polar opposite of sustained. So basically they just don't want damage period.

Well, I mean, yeah. That's the 'problem' that a lot of people want addressed: the don't like the 'low' TTK in this game.

Nevermind the fact that a half-decent player is going to easily keep any 'mech alive for 5, 7, 10+ minutes. Big alphas are a 'problem' because newbies expose themselves and get cored out by concentrated fire from several enemy 'mechs at once, and they don't realize what's happened.

A lot of people don't realize just how much MWO neuters build effectiveness over what it could be. Yeah, sure, you can pull a 70+ point alpha without overheating in this game, but then you have to spend FOREVER cooling down -- compared to earlier Mechwarrior games where you couldn't alpha as high, but you could spit out WAY more damage per unit time because there was no ghost heat artificially overheating builds and heatsinks actually, y'know, worked.

6 CERMLs is 42 damage for 30 heat, but you can EASILY slap 5 additional DHS onto any clan 'mech carrying 6 CERMLs to make it heat-neutral under normal heat rules. Such a 'mech could fire all 6 CERMLs on cooldown, forever, with zero heat build-up. Two such 'mechs is 84 hitscan damage every couple of seconds, from drop-in to dust-off. People really don't want that, they just don't realize that that's what would happen without MWO doing as much as it does to nerf heat management.

[Gamuray]

Khobai, on 02 November 2017 - 04:55 PM, said:

low heat cap is the exact opposite of battletech which has a high heat cap. wed just be moving away from the direction this game should be going in, which is more like battletech

...

no it wont. people will just use gauss.

say you lower the heat cap to 30 like some nutjobs want.

2 gauss + 4 cerml = 58 damage alpha for only 30 heat.

congratulations not only do we still have huge alphas but youve just forced every clan player to use gauss/laser

what are you gonna do now? nerf the only PPFLD weapon clans have left? because clan players will just quit if you do that. guaranteed..



then why would anyone ever use gauss? you might as well just delete it from the game if you do that. ridiculous.

plus why would anyone want to play clans anymore? cant laser vomit. no PPFLD. there is no reason to play clans at all then.

clan players would literally just quit the game outright if you did that crap.


rather than nerfing clans to the point where literally no one wants to play them anymore, it makes way more sense just to buff IS. make ISXL survive side torso destruction. and buff ISDHS so they have better capacity/dissipation than CDHS, which is fair because they take up 3 crit slots instead of 2.


to balance out laser vomit, you also probably need to link large lasers/medium lasers/gauss for ghost heat so the most you can fire in combination is 6 with no more than 2 large lasers in that combination.

and possibly add heat penalties to the last 30 heat on the heatscale. you should have a safety heat buffer based on the capacity provided by your heatsinks. and if you exceed that and go into the last 30 heat on the heatscale youd start suffering heat penalties in the form of movement penalties and cooldown penalties on weapons and it might affect other systems like sensors and targeting as well.

Actually... BT heat cap was 30pts. But heat sinks SUNK that heat... because turns are simulations of 10 second periods. So yeah, you could fire more than 30 heat worth in those 10 seconds, because you could fire some weapons, sink heat and fire your other weapons in that period... technically. So quicker dissipation with lower cap is actually more accurate.. since you wanted to make that argument.

Also, this note technically makes alphas NOT a "shoot all the things in a single burst", but rather "shoot all the things really quick". But that's just a side note.

In terms of gauss.. If every other weapon is in this low heat cap high dissipation scenario, it really isn't all that bad. For instance, while you can't fire gauss with your high heat lasers, you also can't fire other things with your high heat lasers... because you'd go over heat threshold. The prevention of firing during charge up and part of cooldown (could just be 0.5-1 second of fire prevention) really just brings it in line with other weapons and prevents if from being a free add in to your alphas. It's not a nerf when EVERY OTHER WEAPON is in the same position. It's more like "keep the thing from becoming a practical exploitation of the system."

None of these ideas are meant to exist without the others. If you throw the heat cap + dissipation in without this gauss change, then yeah, gauss lasers rule the day. If you add the gauss change but not the heat changes, then yeah, gauss would suck. They exist TOGETHER and work due to that.

Also clans not having laser vomit or PPFLD.. let me see... oh yeah, neither does IS. The whole system is meant to make DPS a bit more effective and Alphas a bit less effective.


Also...

Your solution is way more complicated and convoluted. Not only does it keep ghost heat, which is silly anyways, but continuing to link things just makes a maze of links until... Oh, everything is connected with ghost heat.
And you make IS XL ST loss survivable... which means the light engine is... pointless. *sarcastic thumbs up* Good thinking there.
And then you throw penalties for heat thresholds above some... 30 from the max... so that position on the heat bar... then changes depending on the heat sinks... ..Let's not have to deal with all these shenanigans.


The key with lower heat cap and higher dissipation is to adjust them so that you can fire the same amount of weapons over a span of time, but cannot, without penalty, do ALL of them at once.. except maybe lights and certain mediums. This means shots are separated in groups.

i.e.
-Mech has 2 clpl's and 4 cmed's. Likely fires clpl's, waits a second or two, fires cmed's.
-Mech has 2 gauss and 4 cmed's. Fires gauss, waits a second or two, can then fire cmed's.

They both operate the same, so gauss is not something to be thrown out. It's on the same playing field as other weapons. (this is a mechanics example, ignore potential tonnage differences, damage profiles and firing sequences are similar)

The reason I say can't fire other weapons while gauss is charging/part of cooldown, is because it makes NO SENSE to boost heat when firing other weapons with it, but there needs to be some prevention of large alphas. This is a logical solution without random heat thrown at a heatless weapon.

[MechaBattler]

FupDup, on 02 November 2017 - 05:14 PM, said:

The issue with the ED PTS changes is that the heat dissipation buffs were tiny compared to the heat cap nerfs. And actually, the first few iterations of that PTS resulted in LOWER cooling because engine DHS got nerfed to equal external DHS (skill tree heat buffs were also nerfed).

Anyways, the reason PGI is afraid to do this is because:


So basically, PGI doesn't want more mechs built around sustained damage output. Except they also don't seem to want big alphas either, which are the polar opposite of sustained. So basically they just don't want damage period.

They did up though. Pretty sure it got up to 1.7 dissipation after our initial complaints said it wasn't enough. .3 points shy of true dubs.

[FupDup]

MechaBattler, on 02 November 2017 - 07:31 PM, said:

They did up though. Pretty sure it got up to 1.7 dissipation after our initial complaints said it wasn't enough. .3 points shy of true dubs.

I dug up my old spreadsheet for reference purposes.



The red area represents heatsink counts that would have lower cooling, while the green is better cooling. Note that this data is outdated since the new skill tree. Hypothetical 2.0 TruDubs are listed on the far right for amusement purposes.

One error I noticed in hindsight is that for the TruDubs Elite column, I used the heavily nerfed PTS4 Cool Run. That drags down the values quite a bit, but even then it compares favorably against PTS4 and 5.

Edited by FupDup, 02 November 2017 - 07:47 PM.