44 replies to this topic

[MechaBattler]

dimachaerus, on 19 May 2018 - 07:39 PM, said:

Take us to the wayback machine, and remove heatsinks adding more heat "capacity". Put heatsinks back to their actual disipation rates, and give us a functioning heatscale.

The hotter you run, the more your mechs aim shakes, your hud goes all flickery, the cockpit gets all steamy and Natasha Kerensky starts to... err.. nevermind that last part. lets start over shall we?

Hot mechs run slower, turn slower and are less accurate, they can even have ammo explosions if run too hot for too long, though that might be excessive. You already have the disparate bits of code you'd need to make these work, reticle shake from MASC/JJ usage, Mech slowdown from CXL/LFE destruction. Just need to hitch them to the heat scale. I personally think that would be a good place to start from instead of tweaking Ghost heat, though that could be looked at as well, and possibly even relaxed. Would also make flamers much more meaningful in influencing a fight.

They actually tested the idea of a lower cap and higher dissipation during the Energy Draw PTS. I didn't get to really test it because everyone was spazzing out about ED and people had stopped testing. But a streamer got some people together to test. I didn't get to see too much about it. But he said that it was a more frantic DPS oriented gameplay.

I would certainly like to see a heat scale penalty PTS. Make things a bit more interesting.

[FupDup]

MechaBattler, on 20 May 2018 - 11:12 AM, said:

They actually tested the idea of a lower cap and higher dissipation during the Energy Draw PTS. I didn't get to really test it because everyone was spazzing out about ED and people had stopped testing. But a streamer got some people together to test. I didn't get to see too much about it. But he said that it was a more frantic DPS oriented gameplay.

I would certainly like to see a heat scale penalty PTS. Make things a bit more interesting.

PGI didn't actually test that, at least not properly. What they did was a gigantic nerf to capacity and at first they even nerfed dissipation too. The last iteration had slower dissipation until you mounted enough heatsinks.



For a high-diss low-cap system to work, they'd have to crank up the cooling really high. I'm talking DHS being at least 0.3 each.

[lazorbeamz]

no

[dimachaerus]

Khobai, on 20 May 2018 - 11:10 AM, said:

making gauss the only choice does not increase the number of choices.

How does that make gauss the "only choice"? Does that magically remove AC's, Missiles and more sane quantities of lasers combined with the above?

[Luminis]

dimachaerus, on 20 May 2018 - 12:37 PM, said:

How does that make gauss the "only choice"? Does that magically remove AC's, Missiles and more sane quantities of lasers combined with the above?

I don't boat missiles, but as for ACs, the issue is simple. On IS in particular, you are largely unable to field a significant number of heatsinks along a proper dakka loadout. Look at the ANH-2A or the MAL-MX90, for example. They heat up surprisingly fast and are slow to cool down, especially on hot maps. On a map like Rubelite, you'll likely run into more heat issues with the typical (U)AC5 boating ANH-2A than you'll do with a laser vomiting HBR due to the dissipation.

It's not that ACs run particularly hot, it's that their dissipation is for the most part ****, meaning you're stuck with heat penalties a fair bit.

I guess you'd need to adjust basically all heat generation values for all weapons and look at increased dissipation to compensate.

[dimachaerus]

Which is why I also posited that along with the cap reduction you'd need to increase dissipation. Wouldn't fix everything but it'd be a good starting point. Also think we should scrap ghost heat.

[Khobai]

so basically you want hello kitty laser tag where you only fire one energy weapon at a time.

NO.

[dimachaerus]

Khobai, on 20 May 2018 - 04:26 PM, said:

so basically you want hello kitty laser tag where you only fire one energy weapon at a time.

NO.

Way to oversimplify and strawman dude. Show me on the HTAL where I hurt your fee-fees.

[JudauAshta]

best way to fix laser vomit is to make every map selection to terra therma

[Nightbird]

Laser vomit not really an issue today. Hellbringers and Ebons have fallen out of favor, dakka is in.

[Weeny Machine]

dimachaerus, on 19 May 2018 - 07:39 PM, said:

Take us to the wayback machine, and remove heatsinks adding more heat "capacity". Put heatsinks back to their actual disipation rates, and give us a functioning heatscale.

The hotter you run, the more your mechs aim shakes, your hud goes all flickery, the cockpit gets all steamy and Natasha Kerensky starts to... err.. nevermind that last part. lets start over shall we?

Hot mechs run slower, turn slower and are less accurate, they can even have ammo explosions if run too hot for too long, though that might be excessive. You already have the disparate bits of code you'd need to make these work, reticle shake from MASC/JJ usage, Mech slowdown from CXL/LFE destruction. Just need to hitch them to the heat scale. I personally think that would be a good place to start from instead of tweaking Ghost heat, though that could be looked at as well, and possibly even relaxed. Would also make flamers much more meaningful in influencing a fight.

Another problem is that lasers get bonus range. Sure, they lose damage but that is simply not enough

[R Valentine]

No. cERML needs to be reduced to 6 damage tops. HLL needs a range nerf. The problem isn't "heat scale". If you think that's the problem then cool shots need to be removed entirely, as they're one of the largest heat mech enablers.

[lazorbeamz]

Just remove the coolshot.

[Khobai]

remove all consumables

[ANOM O MECH]

So you want more nerfing....

You want mechs to perform worse even after the engine desync....

How about no.

[Reno Blade]

Quoting from another thread regarding laser vomit nerfe/change:

Reno Blade, on 21 May 2018 - 08:47 AM, said:

Too bad the laser balance/nerf was removed, but I'm looking forward to any PTS testing.

Without Energy Draw, this is how I would do a "quick" change, before any larger sweep:

Generally improve weapons, but reduce the number before GH and link groups together.
So that smaller groups are strong, but larger groups are penalized more.
e.g. similar to how PPC/Gauss are linked in GH.

General changes:
- most weapons heat reduced by 10-15% overall
- some velocities increased (e.g. AC20) by 15-20%
- Gauss +2 heat / Heavy Gauss +3 heat
- AC Burst for all ACs (including IS) with UACs just one more bullet and Clan UACs with 1 more extra

GH limit changes:
- All lasers linked - most important point
- Large Lasers (clans also) max of 3 (increased from max of 2 now for clans)
- Med lasers max of 6
- Small Lasers max of 8

this alone will bring down "vomit" without nerfing the weapons itself (used for smaller number of hard points)
It will also emphasize the use of 1-2 volleys instead of full vomits which in turn also increase the use of builds that use mixed weapons more.
So instead of 2x Large + 6x Med in one alpha volley, you can now fire two groups of either large + med or decide to take two groups of large + large or med + med (depending on your space/ton available) which give a much broader range of mechs some options instead of moving everything to vomit meta whith enough hard points and the rest to the backseat.

the small increase of heat for Gauss will reduce the best Laser + Gauss combo by a small bit without reducing it to unplayable, but makes it so that it's no longer the "only viable option".
Also the change to 3x Large will still allow the Gauss + 3x Large to be very strong (and probably become new meta), so I'm not sure how good this move would be, but at least you won't see a 2x Large + 6x Med + Gauss volley anymore as the only/ best option.

I think that it will still alow the small asymetrical Clan vs IS balance but with a much better balance between these two and also in between all weapon categories.

at least easier/faster than getting any new system (energy draw or heat scale effects).

[Steve Pryde]

All suggestions in this thread are better than the last changes from PGI. FeelsBadMan

[Kalimaster]

You want to fix laser vomit. Make ballistic playable again.

[Khobai]

if you buff ballistics the meta just becomes ballistic spam. how is that any better than laser vomit?

the only real solution for balancing lasers vs ballistics is to make them codependent on eachother.

lasers shouldnt be good enough to be main weapons and should mostly be supplemental/backup weapons (except on mechs that are specifically meant to laser vomit and should have laser quirks like the nova)

and conversely ballistics should limited in ammo just enough so that lasers have to be taken as backup weapons.

mixed loadouts should be rewarded more. instead of the current system which mostly just rewards boating and doesnt really reward mixed loadouts at all.

Edited by Khobai, 21 May 2018 - 03:24 PM.

[Roland09]

You all assume that PGI will hold a round of testing.

Are there any dates published yet? I would not hold my breath...