40 replies to this topic

[process]

Boats will always be viable if not superior so long as mechs can handle the alpha heat. If this game were brawlier and DPS-based, high-heat builds would be harder to maintain, but as it stands there are more advantages to keeping a safe distance with cover to cool off behind.

I still think a low, hard heat cap is the best way to start. It immediately puts a stop to the most common laser vomit builds without some contorted heat calculation system. If that still produces undesirable loadouts, like 3 cLPL, then adjust the heat for those weapons individually. The only outliers are weapons like Gauss, which could easily be addressed by imposing a limit to the number of simultaneous charges as we currently have.

I think energy draw, alpha-based weapons bloom, and heat penalties are far less elegant solutions to dealing with high-alphas than a simple low heat cap and modest adjustment to weapon values.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

adamts01, on 23 January 2018 - 09:07 AM, said:

But boats will still be the best option if we revert the nerfs. Nothing will change except for drastically lowering ttk. I hate Ghost Heat but if we don't include an accuracy penalty when dumping alphas then Ghost Heat is the next best option. This heat nerf will hurt plenty mechs that really need help, but it'll help to tone down some OP mechs like the Hellbringer.

Dang, I had a nice few paragraphs typed up but they got eaten by the forum going offline.

Anyway a summary:

-Spread replacing ghostheat would just cause spread weapons such as MRMs, SRMs, and ATMs to be the meta, why have hot running lasers that do 78 damage alphas and spread all over the enemy when you could have 2 MRM40s and do the same for way less heat.

-Boats are the most optimal form of minmaxing, as long as we can equip more than 1 of a single type of weapon on a mech boats will be the winners because bracket builds just aren't as effective because everything is super nerfed. Bracket builds make too many sacrifices for too little gain in an attempt to be a jack of all trades. Bracket builds are the Timber Wolves of MWO, every other specialist beats them.

-Moving back to what we had creates more diversity on the battlefield. Instead of just laser boats all the time we get UAC boats back again that aren't just UAC2s, and more missile boats too while we're at it, and maybe PPC boats, and all kinds of boats. But not only do we get boats, we also get some builds that used to be semi viable but got crushed entirely leaving boating as the only way to be semi viable as everything moved down in effectiveness. For example the old mixing a UAC20 with small pulse lasers builds that the Clanners would do sometimes on Executioners and Stormcrows.

-I feel that TTK is too high, the skill tree's durability quirks have made it so that if you have them maxed out and are below 50 tons you'll survive a full burn to the head from 6 CMPLs fired at once. You survive 42 damage!. Dual HGauss is pretty much the only system capable of headshotting things with any sort of reliability these days. You have to shut people down twice and alpha their head each time to get that headshot. Meanwhile aside from head components, mechs like the Bushwacker are going around with over 105 HP per leg. Its to the point that mechs just overheat trying to kill eachother as we fire alpha after ineffective alpha to get a kill. It has resulted in only high alpha laser builds being the most effective as they don't waste damage on spreading around and they circumvent the overheating in the middle of battle situation by being trading builds instead.

-Pretty much TTK is so high that sustain builds and builds that commit to fights suffer since they now take a lot more damage than they would have before. Basically since even trading builds get the defensive boosts it gives them extra time to get off an extra shot or at least a last ditch effort alpha that is likely to kill the enemy. For example the 78 damage Hellbringer getting 3 alphas off in a brawl against a quad ASRM6 Bushwacker as instead of dying in 3 alphas it goes and takes a fourth to finish him off. Also hurts flanking builds significantly since their surprise attack is defanged significantly since it takes pretty much a 78 damage Hellbringer alpha to the rear to kill people.

-The heat gen nerf hurts all the weaker mechs way more than it hurts the Hellbringer. The Hellbringer, along with all laser trading builds, are practically unaffected by the change. They'll stand behind cover for one extra second and that is the extent of the damage done. Meanwhile worse mechs or worse builds that were already struggling with heat issues go from just semi viable to unworkable. This is especially true for builds that need high sustain, as they often have play styles where they can't just go hide behind cover for an extra second.

[MischiefSC]

Even my hottest laservomit mechs literally didn't notice the difference.

I could not tell that anything was different.

It equates to about 1% on the heat bar and 0.2 seconds of additional cooling required.

Edited by MischiefSC, 23 January 2018 - 12:29 PM.

[adamts01]

Dakota1000, on 23 January 2018 - 12:26 PM, said:

Dang, I had a nice few paragraphs typed up but they got eaten by the forum going offline.

That sucks. I'll reply in order.

-The reason people would still take lasers is because pinpoint could still be achieved through smaller groups or chain-fire.

-Boats are the best option because everything can be fired at once and that shot is pinpoint. If there were a lower heat like some suggest, 2HLLs and 4ERMLs on a Hellbringer would be redundant, as you couldn't cool off fast enough to take advantage of all those guns. You'd be better off with a smaller alpha and more heat sinks, or SPLs in case you got jumped. This is also where mixed builds could come in to play. If you're limited by how much fire you can deal at a time, you can diversify your load-out without such severe penalties like we see now.

-We still have Dakka boats. The Mk2 is cleaning house with 2xUAC10s and 2xUAC5s. We still have PPC boats, they just don't dump 60-damage pinpoint alphas anymore.

-TTK is tricky, exactly because we have such massive pinpoint alphas. In 2 or 3 shots that Hellbringer can drill through just about any CT out there, which is why we have such insane CT quirks on assaults, and why assaults don't push like they used to. Lights were ruined by the re-scale, the got big and sluggish, so they had to get accordingly tanky, so now Locusts laugh off that single AC20 that an Atlas or Centurion manages to land. If pinpoint alphas were toned down through a lower heat cap, or if their damage were spread, we could remove most structure/armor quirks. Players are so timid these days because a single hit from 500m destroys all their armor and then a little splash from an MG light strips their main gun. I don't blame them for hiding. We need to strive to get back to where we were pre-Clan, just without the bugs and hit-reg issues.

-This goofy TTK actually allows brawlers to start closing like they used to. LBX Bushwhackers, Assassins and some of the MRM builds are good examples. They deal enough damage to whittle down an alpha boat who can't sustain fire. But this is really only due to bad shots and positioning from ranged builds or a very coordinated push from a team with appropriate pushing mechs against a ranged team.

-You're absolutely right. I just took my Hellbringer out to the testing grounds. It runs noticeably hotter, but that just means I'll have to play less aggressive, which is the last thing this game needs.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Noticeable or not, they shouldn't be using the skill tree to balance IS and Clan tech.

[visionGT4]

Personality test time:

If mwoc 2018 was tomorrow and you were in the finals. Would this change mean your team would take all IS mechs?

[Gas Guzzler]

I honestly didn't really notice a difference.

[Khobai]

Quote

Noticeable or not, they shouldn't be using the skill tree to balance IS and Clan tech.

this

now skill points are worth less for clans than IS

thats just wrong


the better approach wouldve just been to make ISDHS into true double heatsinks. which actually wouldve fixed the disparity between CDHS and ISDHS.


a clan laser vomit mech with 25 DHS would have 20+(15*1.4) = 41 dissipation

while an IS laser vomit mech with 19 DHS would have 20+18 = 38 dissipation

thats pretty damn close especially when you factor in the 5%-10% heat quirks a lot of IS mechs get. making all ISDHS into true double heatsinks wouldve solved the whole problem.


instead theyve created a mess by saying clan skill points are worth less than IS skill points.

Edited by Khobai, 23 January 2018 - 11:19 PM.

[Luminis]

visionGT4, on 23 January 2018 - 10:27 PM, said:

Personality test time:

If mwoc 2018 was tomorrow and you were in the finals. Would this change mean your team would take all IS mechs?

lolno

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

visionGT4, on 23 January 2018 - 10:27 PM, said:

Personality test time:

If mwoc 2018 was tomorrow and you were in the finals. Would this change mean your team would take all IS mechs?

Depends on the map. The reason Clan mechs were brought so much more in the finals than IS is because the three maps played were Canyon Network, Polar Highlands, and Tourmaline Desert. Those were the only three maps played throughout all the finals. Of course CERPPC and CERLL boats and high alpha builds in the mid range with only a minor amount of IS in the form of fast moving strikers would be the meta for those maps. Move on over into Mining Collective, Rubellite Oasis, and Viridian Bog and suddenly those CERPPC and CERLL boats are practically useless, high alpha builds are more boxed in able to be rushed, and brawlers can mount surprise attacks.

IS mechs were absolutely competitive with Clan mechs even before this change, though in an asymmetric sense. Map balance is the biggest issue MWO is facing, until we are set to a system where a map is randomly picked out and then we pick a mech after we see the map we'll continue to have a poke centric meta.

adamts01, on 23 January 2018 - 08:14 PM, said:

That sucks. I'll reply in order.

-The reason people would still take lasers is because pinpoint could still be achieved through smaller groups or chain-fire.

-Boats are the best option because everything can be fired at once and that shot is pinpoint. If there were a lower heat like some suggest, 2HLLs and 4ERMLs on a Hellbringer would be redundant, as you couldn't cool off fast enough to take advantage of all those guns. You'd be better off with a smaller alpha and more heat sinks, or SPLs in case you got jumped. This is also where mixed builds could come in to play. If you're limited by how much fire you can deal at a time, you can diversify your load-out without such severe penalties like we see now.

-We still have Dakka boats. The Mk2 is cleaning house with 2xUAC10s and 2xUAC5s. We still have PPC boats, they just don't dump 60-damage pinpoint alphas anymore.

-TTK is tricky, exactly because we have such massive pinpoint alphas. In 2 or 3 shots that Hellbringer can drill through just about any CT out there, which is why we have such insane CT quirks on assaults, and why assaults don't push like they used to. Lights were ruined by the re-scale, the got big and sluggish, so they had to get accordingly tanky, so now Locusts laugh off that single AC20 that an Atlas or Centurion manages to land. If pinpoint alphas were toned down through a lower heat cap, or if their damage were spread, we could remove most structure/armor quirks. Players are so timid these days because a single hit from 500m destroys all their armor and then a little splash from an MG light strips their main gun. I don't blame them for hiding. We need to strive to get back to where we were pre-Clan, just without the bugs and hit-reg issues.

-This goofy TTK actually allows brawlers to start closing like they used to. LBX Bushwhackers, Assassins and some of the MRM builds are good examples. They deal enough damage to whittle down an alpha boat who can't sustain fire. But this is really only due to bad shots and positioning from ranged builds or a very coordinated push from a team with appropriate pushing mechs against a ranged team.

-You're absolutely right. I just took my Hellbringer out to the testing grounds. It runs noticeably hotter, but that just means I'll have to play less aggressive, which is the last thing this game needs.

-If you have to sit there and chain fire small groups of lasers to avoid spreading damage then lasers would be useless. If for example we had a limit of 30 damage fired at any given time builds such as the 78 damage laser alpha would have to fire 1HLL+1ERML(25), 1HLL+1ERML(25), and 4 ERML (28). We move to a situation in which mixing laser types results in worse performance than just boating more and more of one single laser type. For example we would move onto firing 4 ERML at a time, so we'd sort of obsolete mechs with low hardpoint counts entirely resulting in mechs that could hold about 12 lasers being the best so it could fire 3 groups of 4 for 84 damage in a chain. Depending on how the limit is done there are a few options. Either we have it act like ghost heat does now where there is a 0.5 second period that you cannot fire another gun in or it causes penalty. This would result in macros actually providing some advantage as it would just automate firing the 3 weapon groups into one long duration laser of about 2.25 seconds rather than our current 1.55 while providing some extra damage and being a bit lighter weight. How exactly would you implement the system you are talking of anyway? I'm good at metagaming and minmaxing, I'll try and find holes in it that you'd want to patch up.

-I've advocated before that a heat cap of 30 paired with a massive increase in cooling (like 2 times higher cooling at minimum) would make mixed builds somewhat more viable. It would also make UAC boating more of a thing, but really what are you supposed to do with UAC2s? We'd not have the ability to fire super high pinpoint alphas and the much higher cooling rate makes it now a viable option to do something other than boat more heatsinks for your weapon system since currently the low cooling rate is why everyone has to boat all the same weapon type, throwing on that extra LRM10 somewhere means you have a lot less heatsinks and your main weapons will be way worse, with some better cooling that LRM10 could actually be used.

-The Dakka and PPC boats aren't performing at an equal level with laser builds like they used to. Dakka builds now don't have the agility or DPS to really deal with a high alpha laser poker unless the poker is in the open, in which case he's not really doing any poking. PPC boats just took a huge nerf again with the Warhawk, 5 second cooldown per CERPPC, poor thing has 8 DPS pinpoint lowering its total impact on the battlefield in the DPS role and in the alpha role and in the burst DPS role while laser builds just out do it. Not even just the super high damage laser alpha builds, but just running quad ERLL on an Ebon Jaguar compared to quad ERPPC on a Warhawk, you can alpha all those ERLL on the Jaguar twice, 44 damage each time out at ranges similar to the ERPPC while the Warhawk must stagger fire and just has a similar DPS to a mech 20 tons lighter, if we compare it to something in its own class such as the 6 ERLL Supernova we find it fares even worse, two 33 damage alphas compared to 2 20 damage alphas, more DPS overall. Basically every other weapon type has been nerfed so hard over the past years that lasers are really kinda the only thing holding stuff up.

-I recommend we bring back mech agility, bump it back up to 5 times what it is now across the board at least when it comes to torso twisting. This way assaults don't actually need to have huge structure and armor quirks to be relevant, instead they just need their pilot to have some skill at spreading incoming damage. Game has been dumbed down significantly and has caused a laser alpha that takes 1.55 seconds to finish to be one of the top meta builds. Back in the day you could spread that to every hitbox on your upper torso without a problem, now you just hope you can get most of it off your side torso.

-In general pokers win if no one pushes, its why its taken over in the solo queue so much. Players stopped working together and coordinating in their matches and so they just sit there in silence being withered away at 500m in a brawler build until one day they swap to a mid or long range build themselves. I'd once again recommend torso twisting speed increases so that brawlers across the board could move on up and maybe only get an arm opened up instead of their CT.

-Exactly, most of PGI's changes have been doing nothing to stop the hiding fests throughout most matches, instead many just encourage it more or encourage people to stop running whatever fringe meta they have and move right to high alpha laser builds.

[adamts01]

Dakota1000, on 23 January 2018 - 11:28 PM, said:

-I've advocated before that a heat cap of 30 paired with a massive increase in cooling (like 2 times higher cooling at minimum) would make mixed builds somewhat more viable. It would also make UAC boating more of a thing, but really what are you supposed to do with UAC2s? We'd not have the ability to fire super high pinpoint alphas and the much higher cooling rate makes it now a viable option to do something other than boat more heatsinks for your weapon system since currently the low cooling rate is why everyone has to boat all the same weapon type, throwing on that extra LRM10 somewhere means you have a lot less heatsinks and your main weapons will be way worse, with some better cooling that LRM10 could actually be used.

I know I'm on an island with Con of Fire. I completely support your proposal.

Dakota1000, on 23 January 2018 - 11:28 PM, said:

-I recommend we bring back mech agility, bump it back up to 5 times what it is now across the board at least when it comes to torso twisting. This way assaults don't actually need to have huge structure and armor quirks to be relevant, instead they just need their pilot to have some skill at spreading incoming damage. Game has been dumbed down significantly and has caused a laser alpha that takes 1.55 seconds to finish to be one of the top meta builds. Back in the day you could spread that to every hitbox on your upper torso without a problem, now you just hope you can get most of it off your side torso.

Lighter mechs should be more agile, and heavier mechs should have their agility closer tied to their engine. Engine de-sync was a huge mistake. I think they could have toned down an engine's influence, but removing it was a bad move. If they just flat out cranked up agility then lights would be completely obsolete again. I'll never forgive PGI for that rescale.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

adamts01, on 23 January 2018 - 11:59 PM, said:

Lighter mechs should be more agile, and heavier mechs should have their agility closer tied to their engine. Engine de-sync was a huge mistake. I think they could have toned down an engine's influence, but removing it was a bad move. If they just flat out cranked up agility then lights would be completely obsolete again. I'll never forgive PGI for that rescale.

PGI has a real bad habit of always using the worst example as the base for everything. People had hoped that the rescale would be sane and use the current light mech sizes as a base then shrink down bigger mechs some so that they could spread damage more. Instead everything gets way bigger and soon after we get a nerf to agility and suddenly lasers are king and spreading damage becomes a sort of lost art.

Engine desync was a bad idea from the start, I remember people would advocate it as if they didn't know PGI's history, thinking that mechs like the Dire Wolf would gain more agility. Instead Dire Wolf used as base, all 100 ton mechs ruined, multiple other mechs also heavily weakened. Doesn't even make sense for a fast moving mech with a huge engine in it to not get any extra agility, or things with the Night Gyr having equal mobility to a Dire Wolf even though they use the same engine and the Night Gyr is 3/4s the weight.

It really opened up a big can of worms allowing PGI to just crush mobility on a whole lot of mechs at once and at any time they please afterwards.

[Vellron2005]

Kalimaster, on 22 January 2018 - 09:55 AM, said:

What's next in the name of fairness, reducing engine speeds provided to Clan Mechs by 50%.

Don't give them ideas..

[Clownwarlord]

I would like to point out I do not use heat gen nodes anyway, or I try not to. So the change is meh. I would rather spend it on more range and cool down nodes.

[justcallme A S H]

Kalimaster, on 22 January 2018 - 09:55 AM, said:

Yeah, I'm inner sphere, but still I am protesting this move to reduce Clan Heat Values in the Skill Tree. How about buffing something instead.

So how do you like your Clan Mechs now, Well Done, or Extra Crispy.

What's next in the name of fairness, reducing engine speeds provided to Clan Mechs by 50%.

Seems all your threads lately are just uneducated hyperbole - So please - So show us the numbers that are the problem.
Use the in game numbers and some basic mathematics - pre/post patch - and their affects to builds in real numbers.

Then...

Please spell out the exact values that you do not like and how us how much of a difference they will actually make.

Vat Born Villain, on 22 January 2018 - 09:57 AM, said:

Most clan mechs will not even notice the difference. We are talking 1 to 2 points of heat.

It's actually less in most cases... 0.5 to 0.60 to be exact.

But of course the usual uneducated users and Clam Apologists have come running to yet another thread jumping up and down about stuff that they don't even understand when it's presented at a Grade 3 level of basic maths.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 24 January 2018 - 12:55 AM.

[justcallme A S H]

Vat Born Villain, on 22 January 2018 - 10:05 AM, said:

The change does not change the values of dissipation or capacity. It only changes the heat generated by the weapons if you take all of the heat gen nodes.

Yep most mechs it adds an extra 0.1 to 0.2 seconds extra to cool off from extra heat generated. Thus making zero impact on heat cap if you wait that incredibly unnoticeable amount of time to fire again.

Something else cyclone of hyperbole users cannot get their heads around... Probably a reason why they spend more time on the forums than in-game because they are better (in their eyes) at "forum". Cause that level of poor understanding carrying over into the game means you have not grasped the MWO mechanics properly at all.

[justcallme A S H]

Bombast, on 22 January 2018 - 10:11 AM, said:

Thats the annoying bit. Not the change itself, which is likely minor, but how it further promotes one of the builds that many find the most problematic, balance wise. Nerfs to ERMLs promote long waits, thus laser vomit. Nerfing ERPPCs makes lasers more attractive. Nerfing MPL range because it operated (poorly) in the same range space. I don't think they're herding people towards vomit on purpose, but it sure does feel like it sometimes.

Clan DPS builds were so far infront of IS ones though that again, it still really is not going to break and/or smash the game to pieces.

Why the issue, might, be significant for some is because of a key factor - poor builds/mechlab.

Eg. People bringing 8-9T of ammo for 2 cUAC10s to QP (with some lasers or whatever).

I see silly stuff like that all the time. Now if 3T of ammo was dropped, 3cDHS added and a proper skill maze used... The build would actually be functional and then much more appropriate. Thus, you wouldn't notice an impact realistically.

Or players you see running around with 8,000 rounds of AMS on a Heavy. It's all well and good you have your "support" weapon but when 9/10 games you leave the match with 4,000 rounds... If you don't wise up to how to improve that build... Again, you suffer from your own choices.

[justcallme A S H]

Kaeb Odellas, on 23 January 2018 - 08:19 PM, said:

Noticeable or not, they shouldn't be using the skill tree to balance IS and Clan tech.

But... PGI said they would.

So anyone that backed skill tree... That are posting around the place "PGI should not balance via skill maze" yet were fully behind it.

Well guess what? Suffer in your jocks. You wanted it, you got it.

[Khobai]

Quote

Clan DPS builds were so far infront of IS ones though that again, it still really is not going to break and/or smash the game to pieces.

Why the issue, might, be significant for some is because of a key factor - poor builds/mechlab.

youve entirely missed the point

the point is they shouldnt be using the skill tree to balance IS vs Clan

just like they shouldnt be using quirks to balance IS vs Clan.

to balance IS vs clan properly, they need to make ISDHS better than CDHS. Since ISDHS take up more crit slots they should be better than CDHS. They should all be true double heatsinks.

Quote

But... PGI said they would.

So anyone that backed skill tree... That are posting around the place "PGI should not balance via skill maze" yet were fully behind it.

Well guess what? Suffer in your jocks. You wanted it, you got it.

I didnt want the skill tree ever lol.

Most people didnt if I recall.

PGI forced the skill tree on us because they could monetize it.

And they certainly shouldnt be using it for IS vs Clan balancing.

Edited by Khobai, 24 January 2018 - 01:52 AM.

[justcallme A S H]

Well I just ran the hottest build I could think of.. HERE for a laugh. Even kept the ECM and not using the "god" torso for additional heat gen quirks. Don't even have all the heat gen or ops tree maxed out.

Did OK first game out. Plenty of players didn't as usual. By my standards that's a pretty average game for me, usually do better but enemies died very fast (they tried a split push tunnel/saddle). So just picked off one side and then turned around for the other. Easy done.

Now honestly - did I notice this heat change in game? No I did not.

Why? Because anyone that can't take a extra half second to cool off and thinks that is a problem, has no idea what they are talking about. You must constantly reposition anyway which is totally countering the heat change. Same for cERPP cooldown - it's no issue at all to DPS or some mystical "heat cap" issue.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 24 January 2018 - 01:53 AM.