113 replies to this topic

[Jonathan8883]

I think it may be a fun mode. Not all tiers will be ones I'll want to play in... Annihilator Tier for example.
Dueling with a dancing Shadow Cat or using my surprisingly handy Victor though? Yeah, I'll give that a try.

[IllCaesar]

I'm astounded that people are this cynical about a 1v1 and 2v2 deathmatch. Given all of the complaining about issues in QP and FW that has gone on since release, complaints about LRMs, complaints about how small lasers and their variants don't get enough viability, complaints about certain mechs being far below in viability as other mechs of the same weight or class, complaints about matchmaking gets paired up with bad players, match length, complaints about map design, complaints about every mode except for Skirmish, complaints about the inability to get ammo reloads mid-battle hurting builds that rely on ammo, complaints about rockets, complaints about hardpoint inflation, and complaints about dozens of other things that people are upset about a game mode that aims to resolve most of those issues. Solaris solves most of these issues immediately by drastically decreasing the amount of total players in a match and creating a tier list of mechs that compete against each other.

I think at a certain point y'all just gotta admit that you hate fun or something.

[Brain Cancer]

Flamers suffer here because they're a "lock" weapon. PGI made them able to not only add heat, but to continually do so and hold someone at such a high heat level that it negates large portions of the game.

Tabletop makes it so you can't add more heat than the equivalent of 15 single heat sinks worth of cooling with external (flamer, inferno SRM, plasma guns, setting a hex on fire, etc- only lava exceeds this) heat sources- which implementing the equivalent (max "environmental" heat = +1.5 heat/second, flamers and other "heat guns" count as along with terrain/map heat) in MWO would neatly kill the stunlock issue in the bud. A bit of overflamering is good for cold maps past that 1.5/sec,, but you're no longer able to barbeque a single target while smacking it with impunity as it desperately attempts to fight back one chain shot at a time. It'd still slow an opponent down, but not paralyze them- and we could get rid of the inane "flamer too much, massive overheat self" effect as well.

[Mystere]

Brain Cancer, on 22 March 2018 - 01:51 PM, said:

Flamers suffer here because they're a "lock" weapon. PGI made them able to not only add heat, but to continually do so and hold someone at such a high heat level that it negates large portions of the game.

Tabletop makes it so you can't add more heat than the equivalent of 15 single heat sinks worth of cooling with external (flamer, inferno SRM, plasma guns, setting a hex on fire, etc- only lava exceeds this) heat sources- which implementing the equivalent (max "environmental" heat = +1.5 heat/second, flamers and other "heat guns" count as along with terrain/map heat) in MWO would neatly kill the stunlock issue in the bud. A bit of overflamering is good for cold maps past that 1.5/sec,, but you're no longer able to barbeque a single target while smacking it with impunity as it desperately attempts to fight back one chain shot at a time. It'd still slow an opponent down, but not paralyze them- and we could get rid of the inane "flamer too much, massive overheat self" effect as well.

Well, at least someone here is on the right track: adjusting flamer mechanics by improving it for the entire game instead of outright banning it from a single game mode.

It's definitely much better than the prevailing "remove this, ban that, nerf this other other thing into the ground" thought process infesting this game.

Edited by Mystere, 22 March 2018 - 07:28 PM.

[Xiphias]

Brain Cancer, on 22 March 2018 - 01:51 PM, said:

Flamers suffer here because they're a "lock" weapon. PGI made them able to not only add heat, but to continually do so and hold someone at such a high heat level that it negates large portions of the game.

Tabletop makes it so you can't add more heat than the equivalent of 15 single heat sinks worth of cooling with external (flamer, inferno SRM, plasma guns, setting a hex on fire, etc- only lava exceeds this) heat sources- which implementing the equivalent (max "environmental" heat = +1.5 heat/second, flamers and other "heat guns" count as along with terrain/map heat) in MWO would neatly kill the stunlock issue in the bud. A bit of overflamering is good for cold maps past that 1.5/sec,, but you're no longer able to barbeque a single target while smacking it with impunity as it desperately attempts to fight back one chain shot at a time. It'd still slow an opponent down, but not paralyze them- and we could get rid of the inane "flamer too much, massive overheat self" effect as well.

So flamers would simply generate the same amount of heat that 15 singles dissipate? So if I have 10 truedubs flamers won't be able to increase my heat but instead my heat will decrease as if I had 5 heatsinks? Flamers effectively become a slow heat dissipation weapon?

If that's what you're suggesting it would make flamers an absolutely worthless weapon again. Flamers used to add a lot less heat and they were completely worthless. Currently they are a situational weapon that can be quite powerful in certain situations, but weak in a lot of others since they are so short range. They add an interesting element in 12v12 when used on brawlers and I think they're in the best place they've ever been. You see people take flamers sometimes and you see it show up in competitive play at times too. It isn't OP to the point where it's boated all the time, but not so useless that you never see it. In short a pretty good place with niche role (flamer Commando anyone?).

Flamers are an amazing weapon in a 1v1 setting. They are much weaker in a group setting. If you balance them in a 1v1 setting they'll probably be bad in 12v12. I don't trust PGI to have the balance finesse to make the flamer work in both questions. I certainly don't have a solution that I see working in both queues and I'd rather they not break flamers now that they are in an okay spot.

Mystere, on 22 March 2018 - 07:24 PM, said:

Well, at least someone here is on the right track: adjusting flamer mechanics by improving it for the entire game instead of outright banning it from a single game mode.

It's definitely much better than the prevailing "remove this, ban that, nerf this other other thing into the ground" thought process infesting this game.

I don't think so. Flamers are in a decent spot. Trying to balance them so that they work in 1v1 is pretty much a surefire way to break them everywhere else.

Should we also balance LRMs so that they are viable in 1v1s? How would you go about doing that without breaking them everywhere else?

Edited by Xiphias, 22 March 2018 - 07:49 PM.

[Mystere]

Xiphias, on 22 March 2018 - 07:49 PM, said:

I don't think so. Flamers are in a decent spot. Trying to balance them so that they work in 1v1 is pretty much a surefire way to break them everywhere else.

Should we also balance LRMs so that they are viable in 1v1s? How would you go about doing that without breaking them everywhere else?

LRMs are a viable weapon today?

[Brain Cancer]

Xiphias, on 22 March 2018 - 07:49 PM, said:

So flamers would simply generate the same amount of heat that 15 singles dissipate? So if I have 10 truedubs flamers won't be able to increase my heat but instead my heat will decrease as if I had 5 heatsinks? Flamers effectively become a slow heat dissipation weapon?

Flamers add to enviromental heat levels, maximum of 1.5 heat/second. And you eliminate the 90% rule, and you eliminate the cascading heat load flamers generate. You push yourself too far and eat a steady dose of flamer fire, that drop below 100% is going to take that much longer and you will melt yourself while it's happening. You got engine damage or a bunch of lost heatsinks? (lost ST for LFE/CXL)? Enjoy burning alive. Have a flamer generate .4 heat/second when on a target, .3 heat/second for firing it, with no exponential gain.

That puts the benchmark flamer, the Firestarter at perfect capacity to light up a target. Four flamers = 1.6 (which is a bit over 1.5, so it'll have a bit of overage to help on colder maps) heat/second.

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If that's what you're suggesting it would make flamers an absolutely worthless weapon again. Flamers used to add a lot less heat and they were completely worthless. Currently they are a situational weapon that can be quite powerful in certain situations, but weak in a lot of others since they are so short range. They add an interesting element in 12v12 when used on brawlers and I think they're in the best place they've ever been. You see people take flamers sometimes and you see it show up in competitive play at times too. It isn't OP to the point where it's boated all the time, but not so useless that you never see it. In short a pretty good place with niche role (flamer Commando anyone?).

A stunlock weapon isn't fun. That flamer Commando literally existed in the WC dropdecks to paralyze an enemy into uselessness, cutting him out of the game as long as it was there to roast him to 90%+. To me, it's like minimum range deadzones- something that keeps your opponent from playing completely is something that should never be implemented in the first place.

Something that cuts ten external Clan DHS out of the picture for 2.4 tons isn't stunlock, but it certainly slows anyone down.

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Flamers are an amazing weapon in a 1v1 setting. They are much weaker in a group setting.

Heat guns are fantastic in a group setting, they're able to dictate a 1v1 encounter almost totally and properly done, you can be a 20-25 tonner paralyzing an assault while your team trades with impunity. And flamers are the weakest heat gun in Battletech. The only thing that keeps your average SRM type from bathing you in napalm is PGI's incapacity to switch ammo, and once we see plasma rifles/cannons, you'll be getting "flamers" that hit you at IS large laser ranges. For values of up to 9 flamers at once. Or PPC + a few flamer rakes, if it's IS.

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If you balance them in a 1v1 setting they'll probably be bad in 12v12. I don't trust PGI to have the balance finesse to make the flamer work in both questions. I certainly don't have a solution that I see working in both queues and I'd rather they not break flamers now that they are in an okay spot.

I don't think so. Flamers are in a decent spot. Trying to balance them so that they work in 1v1 is pretty much a surefire way to break them everywhere else.

To "balance" flamers, they had to make them capable of turning your robot into a supernova if you used them too long. That's balanced?

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Should we also balance LRMs so that they are viable in 1v1s? How would you go about doing that without breaking them everywhere else?

Don't even get me started on LRMs, which are made to be one of the most situational, unfun-punishment weapons in MWO. They're not even a viable weapon in terms of competitiveness with other weapon systems.

[50 50]

VitriolicViolet, on 21 March 2018 - 03:08 PM, said:

yeah unless it includes FFA im not remotely interested. FFA on the other hand would be awesome id spend a lot of time playing that, though someone mentioned its outside of PGIs coding ablilty so likely wont happen

Except they couldn't work out how to do the mode without teams.
Was a team of 1 and then an 8 team game not considered or something?

Personally I feel that Solaris should have been a standalnoe game, IS hero mechs only.
Could have done a lot more with the customization options without frakking up the balance in MWO or having the horrible imbalance created by Clan tech.

Have a second instance of it for Clan Trials if really necessary.

[Mechwarrior1441491]

Odd that people claim lrms to not be viable, but when I'm dropping alone I am constantly doing 800+ damage in my old Founders Catapult.

[Brain Cancer]

Mechwarrior1441491, on 22 March 2018 - 09:13 PM, said:

Odd that people claim lrms to not be viable, but when I'm dropping alone I am constantly doing 800+ damage in my old Founders Catapult.

Meanwhile, someone using lasers or ballistics is getting twice to three times the actual effect out of the same 800 damage because your missiles spread like melting butter on a hot grill.

And not from lack of knowing, I ran LRM boats full time for years.

[MischiefSC]

The people who say things like 'friends can play with friends' and 'all those comp players who were getting carried' and 'the meta will be turned on its head' and FFS 'LRMs are viable' just make me laugh and are an indication of exactly why Solaris is going to bomb in a lot of ways.

First, we already have 1 v 1s. Some of us do them several times a week in private lobbies already. We already know what that 'meta' is and it'll be exactly the same across every 'Tier' of mech and player. 1 V 1 and 2 v 2 is a billion times more meta driven than 12 v 12 has ever been or could ever be.

Second, I can't help but wonder how people don't get the very basics of comparative analysis.

Suppose you have 24 rabbits. Some rabbits are faster than other rabbits. So you separate your rabbits out by speed; fastest to slowest. Then you divide your rabbits up into 2 sets of 12 and have the teams of rabbits race; fastest average time wins. When you break them randomly into 2 sets of 12, or even better try to keep the teams balanced, you'll end up with different teams winning.

However if you split them into 1 v 1 races, 1 rabbit is always faster than the other. The faster rabbit wins almost 100% of the time. In 12 v 12 matches each rabbit has close to even odds of being on the winning team each time. In 1 v 1 each rabbit will almost always lose to faster rabbits and almost always win against slower rabbits.

1 v 1 will be insanely static. People who make bad robbits or don't take meta or don't have good habits or don't like to leg enemies are always going to lose to those who do. 1 v 1 will have players with 0.1 w/l and people with 10 w/l. If you're not taking an ultra-comp approach to playing each match you'll get utterly destroyed all the time every time. 1 v 1 is the dead opposite of casual.

Third, comp players by nothing more than exposure and experience know more about the mechanics that will drive 1 v 1 wins than everyone else. The w/l leaderboard for Solaris will look pretty much exactly like Jarls List, only way more lop-sided. The good players will have insane numbers of wins, the bottom 80% of the population will have horrible w/l. Solaris will just be a new version of comp queue.

LRMs are only useful against bad players and even bad players can deal with them in 1 v 1, unless you're so bad that you have screwy sensitivity settings on the steering wheel you play with and only alpha strike your mixed lore builds.

We already know what 1 v 1 plays like. There's no mystery. There's nothing magical the matchmaker CAN do; either you're the better player in the matchup or you're not. Unless one of you does something stupid in the mech bay (again, meta in 1 v 1 is way, way more strict) 9 out of 10 matches are pre-ordained.

[Xiphias]

Mystere, on 22 March 2018 - 08:23 PM, said:

LRMs are a viable weapon today?

No, but they are significantly less viable in a 1v1 than they are in a 12v12 setting.

Brain Cancer, on 22 March 2018 - 08:50 PM, said:

Flamers add to enviromental heat levels, maximum of 1.5 heat/second. And you eliminate the 90% rule, and you eliminate the cascading heat load flamers generate. You push yourself too far and eat a steady dose of flamer fire, that drop below 100% is going to take that much longer and you will melt yourself while it's happening. You got engine damage or a bunch of lost heatsinks? (lost ST for LFE/CXL)? Enjoy burning alive. Have a flamer generate .4 heat/second when on a target, .3 heat/second for firing it, with no exponential gain.

That puts the benchmark flamer, the Firestarter at perfect capacity to light up a target. Four flamers = 1.6 (which is a bit over 1.5, so it'll have a bit of overage to help on colder maps) heat/second.

So you can't stop someone from firing if they are cold, only delay their cooldown and you have the ability to lock down crippled mechs. If you've lost that many heatsinks you're probably not a significant threat to begin with, much less a threat worth wasting 4 tons worth of weapons simply to incapacitate.

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A stunlock weapon isn't fun. That flamer Commando literally existed in the WC dropdecks to paralyze an enemy into uselessness, cutting him out of the game as long as it was there to roast him to 90%+. To me, it's like minimum range deadzones- something that keeps your opponent from playing completely is something that should never be implemented in the first place.

Stunlock isn't fun to have happen to you, but it adds an interesting gameplay element. Isn't a Commando flame locking an assault role warfare? If flamers were amazing you'd see them all over, you don't though.

I have no problem with minimum range deadzones and I think they are a good feature. They provide situational tradeoffs. Take PPCs and ERPPCs. They are both effectively the same weapon, ERs gain a bit of extra range at the cost of heat. Regular PPCs have a minimum range, but are a better mid range weapon for pinpoint DPS. If you're in a slow heavy mech you might have the extra heat and choose to take ERs to eliminate the minimum range. If you're a fast mech (like the Cicada 3M) you don't have the heat efficiency to take ERs effectively so you take regular and use your speed to keep range.

In both cases it's a decision and a tradeoff. In the Cicada it forces you to kite enemies and play a range game. If you have a group of PPC Cicadas and you get charged by enemy lights the counter is to split up and get distance and then to shoot at the light attacking your ally. In the old meta in a 1v1 a light could easily kill a PPC Cicada, but two Cicadas could actually kill two lights if played well. The point being that minimum range actually makes for interesting choices and gameplay. Removing min range would just serve to make weapons more generic and the game to have less depth overall.

Even with the min range people still took PPCs over ERPPCs in certain situations and builds because having different roles and weaknesses is a good think.

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Something that cuts ten external Clan DHS out of the picture for 2.4 tons isn't stunlock, but it certainly slows anyone down.

This is basically how old flamers worked and they were total trash, they simply didn't put out enough heat to be worth taking.

A laser vomit EBJ can run with 25 double heatsinks. That's 4.25 h/s dissipation according to smurphy's. The 1.5h/s that you are putting out is the equivalent of a little more than 1.5 CERMLs, that's it. You aren't causing significant heat to the enemy and you're causing yourself nearly the same heat a 1.2 h/s

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Heat guns are fantastic in a group setting, they're able to dictate a 1v1 encounter almost totally and properly done, you can be a 20-25 tonner paralyzing an assault while your team trades with impunity. And flamers are the weakest heat gun in Battletech. The only thing that keeps your average SRM type from bathing you in napalm is PGI's incapacity to switch ammo, and once we see plasma rifles/cannons, you'll be getting "flamers" that hit you at IS large laser ranges. For values of up to 9 flamers at once. Or PPC + a few flamer rakes, if it's IS.

We don't have any of these other weapons and we aren't likely to get them so flamers are the only relevant discussion point. Flamers are quite limited in group settings. You can use flamers in a 1v1 situation to shut down a mech, e.g. Commando vs assault. Similarly, that Commando could tie the assault up by fighting it. The difference is that the assault could shoot back and with pilots that can aim it's likely to win that fight. Flamers actually made for an interesting tactical choice to throw a monkey wrench in the enemy plan in that case. You trade DPS on a light for the ability to disable a mech if you can stay close, that actually allows for some decision making.

Being able to get that Commando into position to be used effectively isn't an easy thing. You have teammates and enemy lights that can engage and counter that kind of situation. Flamers also work great in a brawl, but the meta favors ranged engagements. Having to close to 90m severely limits the situations where flamers are useful and they become wasted tonnage if you can't get in range. With clever play (like the Commando) or good positioning the flamer can be an effective weapon. It it were as fantastic as you say it would be used far more widely, both in comp and in solo queue.

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To "balance" flamers, they had to make them capable of turning your robot into a supernova if you used them too long. That's balanced?

Yes? It's a different mechanic, but it does balance the ability to stun lock a target by limiting the duration you can maintain it for. Could it be better? Potentially, but the suggested idea wouldn't do that.

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Don't even get me started on LRMs, which are made to be one of the most situational, unfun-punishment weapons in MWO. They're not even a viable weapon in terms of competitiveness with other weapon systems.

I mean we agree on the state of LRMs. The core mechanic is just broken where it can't be balanced at both a high and low level. They also generally just make the game less fun. I get sick of hearing "warning incoming missile" every time anyone has a half second to target my mech. It's not even hard to avoid 95% of the time, just annoying.


tl;dr

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Have a flamer generate .4 heat/second when on a target, .3 heat/second for firing it, with no exponential gain.

Generate 1.6 hps on your enemy for only 1.2 hps and the cost of 4 tons. Wow, players are going to be all over this great deal. Your enemy will be laughing at your for wasting 4 tons they spent on useful things.

With those extra 4 tons your enemy could take another 4 heatsinks. If each is disipating 0.14 hps that means your enemy is dissipating an extra 0.56 hps. So you have a net difference of 1.04 on the enemy and 1.2 on yourself. You're basically reverse flaming yourself and those heatsinks are always useful while the flamers aren't.

[Xiphias]

Mechwarrior1441491, on 22 March 2018 - 09:13 PM, said:

Odd that people claim lrms to not be viable, but when I'm dropping alone I am constantly doing 800+ damage in my old Founders Catapult.

1) You probably aren't doing that damage consistently.
2) Even if you are, LRM damage is spread is less effective than the equivalent amount of direct fire damage.
3) If you played against good players you wouldn't be doing that much damage.
4) Damage is mostly irrelevant if you aren't able to kill things and win matches.

If you want to play LRMs for fun, by all means go ahead and do it.

They aren't a viable weapon compared to the other options though and if you don't realize this I don't think I can help you.

[MrMadguy]

As I'm casual player, any E-Sport is big no no for me. Not going to play S7, same as FP.

[Dragonporn]

IllCaesar, on 22 March 2018 - 01:05 PM, said:

I'm astounded that people are this cynical about a 1v1 and 2v2 deathmatch. Given all of the complaining about issues in QP and FW that has gone on since release, complaints about LRMs, complaints about how small lasers and their variants don't get enough viability, complaints about certain mechs being far below in viability as other mechs of the same weight or class, complaints about matchmaking gets paired up with bad players, match length, complaints about map design, complaints about every mode except for Skirmish, complaints about the inability to get ammo reloads mid-battle hurting builds that rely on ammo, complaints about rockets, complaints about hardpoint inflation, and complaints about dozens of other things that people are upset about a game mode that aims to resolve most of those issues. Solaris solves most of these issues immediately by drastically decreasing the amount of total players in a match and creating a tier list of mechs that compete against each other.

I think at a certain point y'all just gotta admit that you hate fun or something.

The main problem is: mechs and weapon systems are heavily unbalanced, they literally cannot be balanced considering how MWO is built. In 12v12 mode it's hard to notice, at least in casual QP. And generally most complains we get here are people venting about bad matches or some lose streaks they get.
In 1v1/2v2, short time after release, when meta sets in, the REAL issues will pop up, and then we'll see some serious bitching flooding the forums all over the place. MWO is simply unsuited for non-team based modes, it will suck. I agree with other folks here, FFA would definitely work, but not Solaris.
And eventually people will just get utterly bored by rock hard meta, playing same mech and same build over and over and over again. All mechs I have (~10 and getting more) I regularly take into play, and doing very well in every single one of them. In S7 such variety would be simply impossible.

[Xetelian]

I didn't ask for faction play. I often wish they hadn't bothered. Especially hate it when they do faction play events.

I didn't ask for Solaris.

What I do want is more meaningful game play out of the core of the game, which is solo queue.

Better modes. Better maps. Fixes for the current maps and modes.


But I'm biased as I am a solo queue junkie.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

two Assaults against

no speed for great Moving when find the other ..its more like a Typical 18 Century Duel

which wins ? the Guy thats first set his Alpha in the Red Cockpit or take 2 Alphas with no Shutdown or have Weapons with Good shaking Blend/Effects

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 23 March 2018 - 03:28 AM.

[Mystere]

Xetelian, on 23 March 2018 - 01:26 AM, said:

I didn't ask for faction play. I often wish they hadn't bothered. Especially hate it when they do faction play events.

You may not have asked for it, but that was what PGI was selling, and that was what many other founders bought into.

[Mechwarrior1441491]

Xetelian, on 23 March 2018 - 01:26 AM, said:

I didn't ask for faction play. I often wish they hadn't bothered. Especially hate it when they do faction play events.

I didn't ask for Solaris.

What I do want is more meaningful game play out of the core of the game, which is solo queue.

Better modes. Better maps. Fixes for the current maps and modes.


But I'm biased as I am a solo queue junkie.

The mistake making quickplay the core of the game is the reason it is in the current disaster. They went watered down casual friendly and are drowning in that mistake.

MrMadguy, on 22 March 2018 - 10:32 PM, said:

As I'm casual player, any E-Sport is big no no for me. Not going to play S7, same as FP.

You are an extreme minority, that is for sure.

[Asym]

OP, Solaris is the wrong direction for me. I have zero interest competing and 1x1/2x2 is just that: the absence of teams and fun.

Solaris is not like "Doom" or any other Arcade FPS where it was fun: you against the AI and levels with silly weapons.

Solaris is you against another person and there are little controls in place to "balance" whom you are playing? So, I expect stomp after stomp after stomp............player quits. At least in "Doom-like" FPS's, there was a change at every level. In Solaris, you'll see the same thing, over and over again...

And, PGI is going to be forced to "evaluate balance" pretty quickly because of the nerf's over the past 15 months or so: they weren't enough to extend TTK and that, will be the next level of changes in an attempt to limit stomps.....

OP: No Solaris for me.