845 replies to this topic

[Y E O N N E]

Holy Jackson, on 18 September 2018 - 08:38 PM, said:

I JUST WANT TO THANK PGI FOR MY 56 POINT LASER ALPHA PIRANHA! THIS CLEARLY FIXES THE LASER META!

Try this. It's almost like the old 6x cSPL ACH.

[Holy Jackson]

I did try that one, thanks!

I prefer my ludicrous poking.

[Reno Blade]

When thinking of the heat scale effects for different mech classes, it needs to consider the % or value to be effective in all cases.
Ofc just using 20% slower speed on 100kph feels much different than 20% on a 50kph mech.

My remaining issue (which I'm not sure of how i would solve) is the fact that slowing down agility and aimin is not affecting the current alpha, but only what happens after the alpha.
So this is a "downgrade" from Ghost Heat when considering this as alpha-limiter.

The only idea would be to keep the effect for a certain time (e.g. 5 seconds) before it diminishes slowly.
e.g. you alpha to 80% heat and then get the penalties for 80% for the next 5 seconds.

As you've said, the problem would be mechs with dakka and lower heat in general (e.g. lights), but is this a problem of the idea or because boated DHS are too strong (and getting buffed) in big boats?
And is it really a problem if all mechs/builds are affected by the same scale?

Just a few brainstorming ideas for handling these scenarios:
- quirks/skills to lessen the effects (trigger levels, percentages, durations)
- effects scale with mech weight / engine rating or engine type

anyway, as we see from our little discussion, such a system would require much more balancing from the start than what we have with GH (or even ED) and PGI is aiming for quick wins rather than sysem overhauls.
Sadly, but understandable after all the time invested in Energy Draw was wasted when it was rejected.

[Tesunie]

Just to make a note, I saw the ERLL Novacat in MW4, but it wasn't so dominating when heat and ammo where turned on from what I recall. Of course, I got in late into the MW4 Online play days, and it was hard to find a server with heat and ammo turned on at that point. So many times I saw a build made without heat or ammo considerations on the servers I played, and they popped as soon as they shot once (or had no ammo at all). Then the string of complaints about how we all cheated, and them disconnecting...

Maybe I missed the stage where those builds were running rampant (with heat and ammo turned on)... As I said, my MW4 Online days were very limited...

[Tarl Cabot]

Yeonne Greene, on 18 September 2018 - 06:40 PM, said:

Not really; there will be good pilots who understand and bad pilots who don't. The penalty will be treated like we treat override now; only doomed pilots will ever really feel the effects, doomed because they are going out swinging as the last man standing or doomed because they didn't really know what they were doing anyway.

The penalty has to be to an attribute crucial to performance, or it won't matter. The penalty also has to be more than token, or it won't matter. Like, a MAD-IIC with the October numbers is going to have a heat dissipation of 7.502 and a heat cap of 65. 80% of that is 52, 50% is 32.5; the delta is 20.5. It takes you all of 3 seconds to go from penalty to no penalty. Unless you plan on freezing the 'Mech in place, mobility won't do anything because it doesn't have far to go to get back into cover. Turning the HUD off won't matter, because it can't shoot again anyway. You can start cooking off ammo or blowing up weapons, if you want. In the end, it doesn't matter because it makes my point for me:

This alpha strike is going to get fired, and whatever penalty you place to discourage it from being fired is meaningless because of the nature of the build unless it is super strict, at which point you may as well have simply dropped the cap.

Goal accomplished, but not through the addition of heat-scale penalties. In essence, you've just lowered the cap and then piled on a layer of coding garbage that serves no function. You've increased complexity without adding depth and the addition of depth was part of your goal, was it not?

The nuance is a red herring, is what I'm saying. Like I said above, there will be good pilots who figure that out and bad ones who don't. You may decrease the frequency of alpha strikes, but purely as a function of the reduced usable cap.

Just to touch on this. a temp mobility nerf may not have has an adverse effect on a slow assault or heavy, or even a medium as it would on faster moving mechs but that mobility nerf does not just hit the mech going forward but also in reverse, meaning it is exposed for a slightly longer period of time.

And yes, there will be good players, bad players and new players. We can also look at one of the cXL penalties, the 20% movement penalty. Though it was not added until 16 months after Clans were introduced. What is funny and sad at the same time were the number of players who were up in arms about getting ANY PENALTY when a Clan lost a ST other than the weapons and components on that side. I had almost forgotten those threads/posts (found a few today..) Then there is the 40 KPH or 50% movement penalty, which ever one is the lowest, when a leg is lost.

Oh, a post from Khobia not wanting ANY movement penalties, be it cXL or isXL (Nov 2015 - cXL penalty added 12-01-15. Also included in that patch the old Skill Tree reduction across the board) before MWO was released on Steam.

https://mwomercs.com...ost__p__4818416

One in a few posts advocating non-lethal penalties when a cXL is lost...

Robert blackseven Sohn, on 18 September 2014 - 06:02 AM, said:

Clan XLs needs penalties for losing ST. "Some heat" isn't really enough. The movement hit has to be significant enough to be felt. More than 10%.

The Clan XL defenders point out that you lose about half your loadout when you lose an side torso, which they claim is a disadvantage. Uhh, IS mechs lose exactly the same amount of their loadout when they lose a side torso, IF their were running a standard. Meanwhile the Clanner has been taking advantage of the MASSIVE weight saving of the XL engine to load up most weapons/ammo/heat sinks and dish out way more firepower before losing the ST. A pristine IS mech using a standard engine doesn't usually have double the fire power of a equal weight Clan mech with a torso blown out.

It was only mentioned a few times, but pretending like the "zombie" abilities of a few IS mechs somehow balances them against the MASSIVE advantage of the Clan XL is similarly laughable. Yes, being able to zombie is an advantage, but it's such a corner case - you have to have taken fire mostly to both STs and not that much on your CT, AND you have to have CT/Head weapons, which only about half the mechs do. And if you talk "Comp" or "meta" level chassis, I'm not sure that any have CT/Head weapons.

/what the frak did I just post?!?! bah.. leave it..

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 19 September 2018 - 11:08 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Tesunie, on 19 September 2018 - 09:47 AM, said:

Just to make a note, I saw the ERLL Novacat in MW4, but it wasn't so dominating when heat and ammo where turned on from what I recall.

I refused to play UA/NH so I'm not talking about that.

[Tesunie]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 19 September 2018 - 05:03 PM, said:

I refused to play UA/NH so I'm not talking about that.

Mostly just checking is all. I know a lot of people did play that way.

I too refused to play with UA/NH. My Shadowcat with an AC20 and ERMLs did well...

[HARDKOR]

Please just rig it up like MW4, but using this engine and throw out every single thing you've done in regards to how guns work.

And yes, I mean drop this mouse garbage and bring back the joystick as king.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

HARDKOR, on 19 September 2018 - 06:38 PM, said:

And yes, I mean drop this mouse garbage and bring back the joystick as king.

Joystick was never king.

[HARDKOR]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 19 September 2018 - 08:17 PM, said:

Joystick was never king.

You can build the game one of two ways, and MW4 favored the joystick, which caused a slight drift to the mouse, where MWO favors the mouse, and makes the joystick inaccurate. If you didn't think it favored the joystick, great, but the way they had it rigged up made the joystick just as deadly.

Their "pro" competition even requires keyboard mouse. WTF.

My point is, for all this talk of balance, they went straight for dumping the sim feel of the game.

What's funny is, I used to go through 2 joysticks a year, because the twist spring or the trigger would give out. A great business model would have been to make a stick and throttle designed specifically for the game and milk your hardcore players from the hardware side, instead of via feature creeping the mechs.

[SilentScreamer]

HARDKOR, on 20 September 2018 - 08:27 AM, said:

You can build the game one of two ways, and MW4 favored the joystick, which caused a slight drift to the mouse, where MWO favors the mouse, and makes the joystick inaccurate. If you didn't think it favored the joystick, great, but the way they had it rigged up made the joystick just as deadly.

Their "pro" competition even requires keyboard mouse. WTF.

My point is, for all this talk of balance, they went straight for dumping the sim feel of the game.

What's funny is, I used to go through 2 joysticks a year, because the twist spring or the trigger would give out. A great business model would have been to make a stick and throttle designed specifically for the game and milk your hardcore players from the hardware side, instead of via feature creeping the mechs.

Sticking with keyboard/mouse over special controls is actually a smart move for MWO in my opinion:
- Game is F2P, computers come with keyboards and a mouse. Getting a specialized controller costs money. The game is a niche market already, keep cost of entry down.
- Controllers can be a tech-support nightmare and Players blame the software developer first, not their 10 year old controller which has been out of production for 3 years. True gamers will find a way to get their setup working. Casual gamers will uninstall.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

HARDKOR, on 20 September 2018 - 08:27 AM, said:

My point is, for all this talk of balance, they went straight for dumping the sim feel of the game.

If joysticks were the only thing keeping the sim feel of the game then the game wasn't sim to begin with.

Regardless, does joystick support honestly benefit them? Given how it helps a minority of an already large minority of gamers? No, because the point isn't really to reward hardcore gamers (and not all hardcore gamers in this case care about joysticks), it's to bring in new ones and turn them into hardcore gamers.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 20 September 2018 - 04:49 PM.

[HARDKOR]

Well, I lost four jobs over MW4(just one more game), and I was only able to maintain full blown interest(never late for work once) in this one long enough to get that Beta 1 FP trophy for my marauder...

And yes, I did JS for a year, got pretty good with it, did everything I could to make it work... tried a mouse for 2 days and my stats jumped about 20%. The game sucks *** on a stick. You literally have to use the throttle for finessing your aim.

Maybe they need loot crates, log in rewards, cartoonish graphics, boobs, and of course, make it run on an iPhone...

Edited by HARDKOR, 20 September 2018 - 07:32 PM.

[HARDKOR]

Also...

The way this game is won is by pushing as a team. If everyone listens and follows orders, you can win with 50% noobs. WTF is competitive about that? Who cares about weapon balance? It's all really quite irrelevant, honestly. If you are playing in pugs, take whatever you want, and adjust your expectations accordingly. If you play FP... either get on a team that has solid leadership or don't bother, because it's not a game of skill, it's a game of discipline.

Chasing balance is ridiculous. In all honesty, the game would probably be the most fun if they just randomized the quirks every month and let people enjoy the mech lab.

[Y E O N N E]

HARDKOR, on 20 September 2018 - 07:30 PM, said:

Also...

The way this game is won is by pushing as a team. If everyone listens and follows orders, you can win with 50% noobs. WTF is competitive about that?

Only because 95% of the playerbase absolutely sucks at building 'Mechs and aiming.

Big dumb pushes like that only get you murdered against competent players; that's why MWOWC16 and 17 were largely poke-fests from 800+ meters. You have to wear your opponent down before you can just push out across the open and flatten him.

[HARDKOR]

Yeonne Greene, on 20 September 2018 - 08:17 PM, said:

Only because 95% of the playerbase absolutely sucks at building 'Mechs and aiming.

Big dumb pushes like that only get you murdered against competent players; that's why MWOWC16 and 17 were largely poke-fests from 800+ meters. You have to wear your opponent down before you can just push out across the open and flatten him.

Wait... there's a version of this game where it's all pokey? That's the only version I enjoy. How does one get in on that? I have zero interest in murderball or push tactics. I like the ultra high alpha, 2 shot kill, high stress poke a thon.

I don't have time to play the 8 hours a day it takes to make FP a thing, especially since its push play, but if anyone wants a solid hill humper/pop tart for a league... I'd be down to hone my skills up for league play.

Edited by HARDKOR, 21 September 2018 - 08:31 AM.

[LDTorroc]

Ok so been reading through this for a while and i would like to go ahead and point things out here.

Clan tech in BT and MW has always been better then IC, It wasnt untill the later years when we started to see more tech relised with in the IC such as these.

NLRM= Enhanced LRM
VSP laser= Variable Speed Pulse Laser
X-pulse lasers
Thunde bolt launchers

When these started to be used with in IC, we started to see a balance with the Clan tech. Now here is a thing, We are missing weapon systems in this game with sould be in this game to help balance both sides of the field. Let the Clans have their Clan weapons, and give Ic their mech based arty, give the Ic their sniper cannons. Both sides had vary powerful weapons but when you leave out the weapons with were created with in LORE to fight the clans out of the game then your gimping your self on it. Hell give the clans their Hag's and give it the same damage out up as a heavy Gauss rifle for all i care. There is more weapon systems With in IC with could be brought out to balance the playing field when it comes to with is better clan or ic.

[Simulacrum]

If you really want to reduce the potential Alpha damage to 65 for every 'Mech why don't you just cap the damage dealt within say 1 sec. to that number?

I do not know what you netcode is capable of but it should be the easiest way for balancing to cap the overall damage in X.Y seconds to N instead of killing the differences between IS and Clan.

[Last Of The Brunnen-G]

According to sarna gauss rifles need so much energy to charge up, that it's often not possible to fire them together with many other weapons in a single alpha strike. What does this mean? I think this shows that heat is not the only important value to consider for alpha strikes. Maybe in the TT it was to complicated to implement energy output side by side to heat management, but we are not playing a TT here.

My suggestion:
Fusion engines are in fact reactors that produce the energy for the battlemech. Give them an energy output proportional to their size. Give the weapons a value and timing for energy drain. For example a gauss rifle drains a lot energy at the charge up, while a laser drains the energy during it's fireing duration. You can now remove ghost heat at once and still maintaine controll over alpha strikes. Mechs build for high alpha strikes are now forced to get bigger engines what comes at trade offs to.

[Aidan Crenshaw]

Ohhh... an necro to propose energydraw? Good luck, i suggest you look that up before putting any more thoughts into that