54 replies to this topic

[The6thMessenger]

Here's an idea, what if every weapon has 1 ghost heat? Basically you can only fire 1 before hitting ghost-heat. But the catch is that, the heat penalty isn't really that high.

Or rather we eliminate the heatscale system, but add a corresponding heat penalty for every extra weapon in the set. Every weapon is LINKED.

The 6 CERML produces 37.8 heat yeah? What if, firing 3 CERML after another 3 CERML produces even lesser heat? that as opposed of the expected 18.9 heat, it would have been only 16.065 heat?

That means you can have more damage/heat when you are chain-firing.

I'm not that good with math, but here's transform values. Subject to change. The transform values is just there to translate current heat, to the new system, but it does not mean the new heat value, and the heat penalty should be just directly translated.

Quote

New Heat Value = [(Current GH) x (Current Heat)] / [Current GH x NHV Constant]

For example, CERML at GH of 6, and at 6.3 Heat. HNV constant is 1.5.

37.8 / 9 = 4.2

So 4.2 is now the heat of each individual CERML.

Now while that may seem OP, that really only means that you are only doing 4.2 Heat when shooting only 1 CERML at a time.

Quote

Static Weapon Heat Penalty = [(Current GH X old heat Value) - (Current GH X new heat Value)] / (Current GH^2)

To figure out the new Heat Penalty that goes with the new system, the difference of the new and old heat values at the old GH is divided to the square of the current GH.

With CERML doing 38.7 heat before, now 25.2:

12.6 / 36 = 0.35

And now the new Heat Penalty is 0.35

Quote

Heat Penalty System:

Each weapon will produce extra heat multiplied to the amount of weapons fired within a single volley.

Quote

Individual Heat Penalty = [(Weapon Group Count x Static Weapon Heat Penalty]

This is how we calculate individual heat penalty. This applies the heat penalty with the square of the current weapon group that was shot.

Suppose that CERML fired two, that means each CERML will incur 0.7 heat, or a total of 1.4 heat penalty, at a total of 9.8 heat.

Simmilarly, Three CERMLs would produce 1.05 heat each, and will net heat penalty of 3.15, or a total of 15.75 heat.

Now at 6 ERMLs, it would produce 2.1 heat for each, and will net 12.6 penalty heat, at a total of 37.8 heat -- which is the same as the original CERML.

Now here's the catch, while the old system would produce 7.06 extra heat for firing 7 CERML, at a total of 51.16, the new system would be cooler;

7 x .35 = 2.45 x 7 = 17.15 extra heat. 29.4 + 17.15 = 46.55. It's waaay cooler than before right?

Also when firing 12, you incur 118.19 extra heat, at a total of 193.79 heat. but with my system it would be at 12 x .35 = 4.2 x 6 = 50.4 + 50.4 = 100.8 heat. It's literally waaay tamed than it was before.

As you notice, why am i not just squaring instead? Because the system takes account of weapon differences. Lets say 2x CGauss + CERPPC.

Current system would put the heat at 61.77, regardless of whether you are shooting 2x CGauss, + CERPPC, or 2x CERPPC + Gauss.

CERPPC New Heat = 29 / 3 = 9.6667
CERPPC SWHP = 2.4168

Individually, the CERPPC should still produce 9.6667 heat, but would produce total of 29 heat when firing two. But when firing 3, would net 7.2504 heat each, and produce a total of 50.7513 heat. Compare that to the 61.77 as with before. Firing 4, would make each CERPPC do 19.3339 heat, and produces 77.3356 heat, compare that with 106.72.

Now what about gauss?

CGR New Heat = 2 / 3 = 0.6667

CGR SWHP = 0.1668

Simmilar case before, that at 2 Gauss Rifles, it would still produce 2 Heat.

But what I am interested to show you is that, how could the 2x GR + PPC and 2 PPC + GR would work.

Quote

GR Extra Heat = SWHP x Group Count
0.1668 x 3 = 0.5004

PPC Extra Heat = SWHP x Group Count
2.4168 x 3 = 7.2504

That means, 2x GR + PPC, would only produce 1.0008 + 7.2504 = 8.2512 Extra heat, at a total of 19.2513 heat.

But the 2x PPC + GR would produce 15.0012 extra heat to the system, at a total of 35.0013 heat.

Compare that to the static 61.77.

Quote

GR Extra Heat = SWHP x Group Count
0.1668 x 4 = 0.6672

PPC Extra Heat = SWHP x Group Count
2.4168 x 4 = 9.6672

Now lets suppose 2x Gauss + 2x PPC:

The heat penalty would be (19.3344 + 0.6672) x 2 = 20.6688 heat penalty + 20.6668 = 41.3356 heat.

Now compare that to the static mind-numbing 106.72 heat with GH. But as opposed of just having 31 heat when there's no heatscale, there is still penalty of 10.3356. If that's the case, we can assume that Gauss Rifle is no longer heatless as it does 6.16373 heat instead of just 1.

What about if we did 6x ERML + 2x HLL?

Quote

CERML New Heat = 38.7 / 6 = 4.2
CERML SWHP = (38.7 - 25.2) / 6 = .35
CHLL New Heat = 32 / 3 = 10.6667
CHLL SWHP = (32 - 21.3333) / 4 = 2.666675

Total of 8 group would mean that each ERML would produce 2.8 extra heat, simmilarly the HLL would produce 21.3334 extra heat.

25.2 + 21.3333 + (6 x 2.8 = 16.8) + (2 x 21.334 = 42.668) = 106.0013 - that is the total of 6x ERML + 2x HLL.

Originally, that would have been 32 + 38.7 = 70.7 heat. This means, now you can't just rely on the old GH limit to stack so much weapons to get so much alpha.

Suppose that we do 4x ERML + 2x HLL instead?

A total of 6 group would mean that ERML would produce 2.1 extra heat for every ERML, while the HLL would produce 16.00005 extra heat for every HLL:

That means the total is such.

16.8 + 21.3333 + (2.1 x 4 = 8.4) + (16.00005 x 2 = 32.0001) = 78.5334. Compare that to 57.2 heat as it was before.

Now i know, this will completely discourage laser-vomiting. But i suppose that HLL, in that mix would at least have lower heat penalty to adjust.

In Conclusion

This system incentivizes chain-firing by having exponential heatscale in place, by making weapons more heat efficient when fired in volleys than all at once. This should put a much more tamed heat-scale, discourages boating but not outright eliminate it, and as opposed of creating loopholes in which people can make the most efficient weapon combinations due to different GH limit by stacking different weapons, this only calculates weapons all fired at once.

Now i understand, what about those with 0 Ghost heat limit? As in like the iSL or iERSL, or the LBXs? I think they can have arbitrary GH for the sake of calculation. Maybe the 1 GH limit, would result into simply doubling the heat -- well their GH should be adjusted in the first place.

Given to newbies, as opposed of having to show the heatscale table, we can just say "Weapon will do x extra heat for every weapon in your volley". Sure, it's less intuitive than Energy Draw, but at least we eliminate the loopholes in Ghost-Heat, does not completely discourage boating with extreme heat penalty and is neutralized by being incentivized in chainfiring in the first place.

What do you think?

Edited by The6thMessenger, 01 August 2018 - 04:52 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Seriously, where is my downvote button.

[The6thMessenger]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 04:42 PM, said:

Seriously, where is my downvote button.

You couldn't explain the downsides as to why you wouldn't want this?

[Quicksilver Aberration]

The6thMessenger, on 30 July 2018 - 04:47 PM, said:

You couldn't explain the downsides as to why you wouldn't want this?

How about, I don't enjoy having chain fire all my weapons to do damage?

Exactly what is the point of trying to incentivize chain-firing, what purpose does it serve to bother adding to the game?



I don't think the problem has ever been about whether you could or couldn't incentivize chain firing, it has always been about whether you should.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 30 July 2018 - 04:50 PM.

[FupDup]

Easy workaround: Use a build with only 4 or fewer frontloaded weapons (i.e. Clan ERPPCs of varying quantities) and suddenly chainfiring isn't that bad while you still gain much better heat from this change.

[Tarogato]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 04:42 PM, said:

Seriously, where is my downvote button.

I have a better button.

[The6thMessenger]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 04:49 PM, said:

How about, I don't enjoy having chain fire all my weapons to do damage?

You CAN alpha, the system only incentivizes chainfiring heavily, all the while making boating -- which was extremely handled in GH system -- a lot tamer.

If you still don't get it, this means that you don't have to chainfire, you can alpha. I mean sure you might be doing 4.2 heat out of a single ERML, but if you're chaining them and doing so much face time anyway, what's the point in that? It's up to the players to balance their own face time with respect to heat, not PGI with their max alpha limits.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 04:49 PM, said:

Exactly what is the point of trying to incentivize chain-firing, what purpose does it serve to bother adding to the game?

To beat Pinpoint damage, encourage increasing stare-time at a certain level that makes it less poke, and to increase TTK like PGI would have wanted. Sure I suppose a better system should be in place, but if PGI is doing heatscale like GH, i believe it could at least be better.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 04:49 PM, said:

I don't think the problem has ever been about whether you could or couldn't incentivize chain firing, it has always been about whether you should.

Well, the problem as I see it is that GH has this loophole of being able to stack different weapons together and producing so much alpha damage. If you didn't get it, incentivizing Chainfiring is used as the answer, to deter boating -- chainfiring not being done was never the problem, but the system as i made it implies that incentivizing Chainfire would be a solution.

The "should", would be handled by the current situation such as if facetiming would be more dangerous than simply peeking to poke. The system isn't built to push everyone to chainfire, because it's already mitigated by the situation, it's only serve to incentive them to contrast the tamed boating system.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 30 July 2018 - 05:06 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

The6thMessenger, on 30 July 2018 - 04:57 PM, said:

You CAN alpha, the system only incentivizes chainfiring heavily, all the while making boating -- which was extremely handled in GH system -- a lot tamer.

If you still don't get it, this means that you don't have to chainfire, you can alpha. I mean sure you might be doing 4.2 heat out of a single ERML, but if you're chaining them and doing so much face time anyway, what's the point in that? It's up to the players to balance their own face time with respect to heat, not PGI with their max alpha limits.

This is a non-answer, if I pay a huge enough penalty for alphas, I'm simply not going to, just like most builds avoid triggering ghost heat now.

The6thMessenger, on 30 July 2018 - 04:57 PM, said:

To beat Pinpoint damage, encourage increasing stare-time at a certain level that makes it less poke, and to increase TTK like PGI would have wanted. Sure I suppose a better system should be in place, but if PGI is doing heatscale like GH, i believe it could at least be better.

You realize that some weapons are pinpoint and rely on stare-time as well right? RACs, MGs, ACs, etc (mostly ballistics). You can increase TTK without making the game unfun to play at both a casual and high level of play, not that is strictly necessary for this game at the moment.

The6thMessenger, on 30 July 2018 - 04:57 PM, said:

Well, the problem as I see it is that GH has this loophole of being able to stack different weapons together and producing so much alpha damage.

That loophole is what allows for a bit more diverse builds rather than stacking the same weapon over and over. Some weapons synergize with each other but that's not problematic, that's actually a GOOD

The6thMessenger, on 30 July 2018 - 04:57 PM, said:

If you didn't get it, incentivizing Chainfiring is used as the answer, to deter boating -- chainfiring not being done was never the problem, but the system as i made it implies that incentivizing Chainfire would be a solution.

Boating isn't the problem and this doesn't change that. Did you ever play the ED PTS, all this does is encourage a similar thing, where you either chain fire some big efficient weapon or you fire small groups of efficient weapons.

Let's step back a second though, what qualifies as a boat? A mech that specializes? Or a mech that stacks the same exact weapon multiple times?

Let's say single weapon damage is buffed (directly or indirectly) to make big weapons incentivized, the only thing you've changed is how many weapons it takes to produce large alphas and those alphas are important to the game, they keep the game from being a stale and very boring DPS face rush.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 30 July 2018 - 05:09 PM.

[The6thMessenger]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 05:06 PM, said:

This is a non-answer, if I pay a huge enough penalty for alphas, I'm simply not going to, just like most builds avoid triggering ghost heat now.

Keyword: "Enough". Whether it's a non-answer is just because of you.

It's up to people to find balance.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 05:06 PM, said:

You realize that some weapons are pinpoint and rely on stare-time as well right? RACs, MGs, ACs, etc (mostly ballistics).

And what's the point of them being already pinpoint and used to stare? Rhretorical -- there's no point.

Now poking though, and the reduction of TTK. Well there's that too.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 05:06 PM, said:

That loophole is what allows for a bit more diverse builds rather than stacking the same weapon over and over. Some weapons synergize with each other but that's not problematic, that's actually a GOOD.

Again, at the result of ridiculously high alpha damages that isn't condusive to the game -- or so what is PGI is against to.

That being said, a different look on the synergies would mean that certain combinations of weapon is meta. Like Gauss Vomit. This restricts what are good, only to specific combination of weapons. And as good as that would be, it's not condusive to restrict weapon combinations on a game that you are supposed to build your own mechs.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 05:06 PM, said:

Boating isn't the problem and this doesn't change that. Did you ever play the ED PTS, all this does is encourage a similar thing, where you either chain fire some big efficient weapon or you fire small groups of efficient weapons.

But as opposed to the ******* that is ED, it's not limited to 30 damage. You don't just need to find the most efficient way to add up 30 damage -- which is by stacking the very same weapons together, there's no ceiling, only diminishing returns. And it wouldn't be up to the 30 damage, it's up to the player's preferences and situation.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 05:06 PM, said:

Let's step back a second though, what qualifies as a boat? A mech that specializes? Or a mech that stacks the same exact weapon multiple times?

I say, either.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 05:06 PM, said:

Let's say single weapon damage is buffed (directly or indirectly) to make big weapons incentivized, the only thing you've changed is how many weapons it takes to produce large alphas and those alphas are important to the game, they keep the game from being a stale and very boring DPS face rush.

You seem to be operating to the assumption that now, alpha-ing is bad and shouldn't exist, and wouldn't exist on this system.

You can still alpha if you wanted to, the heat efficiency would matter so little if you aren't maximizing damage at a short window of opportunity, if you aren't putting a lot of damage in a single component resulting to the weapons being spread everywhere. Why is that hard to understand? There is such a thing as a stupidly efficient, it's like having 20 Heat Sinks on a mech that only has 2 Gauss Rifles.

And besides, a opposed to a boring poke trades? What i am trying to achieve is balance between chainfiring and alpha, while eliminating the GH loophole and making boating a lot less discouraged.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 30 July 2018 - 05:34 PM.

[Tarl Cabot]

Lets try this again... It is something I and a few others had previously proposed a few times but it was not simply to encourage chain fire but as a way to remove the big GH spikes and to make it more user friendly, ie 2+2 = 5 instead of 2+2= 8. Tis still a good discussion, even though PGI would not even blink at it.

The GH has rarely been touched, usually either reducing the number of weapons, linking weapons but the actual GH being generated has been touched, once or twice on a couple of weapons? It is any weapon though. Small lasers and MG.. increment ghost heat. GR and 6 cERML, or GR and 3ERLL and 4 ERML. PGI has gone and linked GR + ERPPC. Even MG would generate some heat since a player is not pulling a trigger, he is holding down the trigger. Heatsinks are there to remove heat and prevent things from warping.

But that was thinking out of the box....

[Quicksilver Aberration]

The6thMessenger, on 30 July 2018 - 05:17 PM, said:

Keyword: "Enough". Whether it's a non-answer is just because of you.

It's up to people to find balance.

If the goal is improve TTK, then alphas won't be the "main style" which implies that chain-firing will be the most effective way of doing damage because you will have to kill both Gauss/PPC/vomit styles of play AND dakka styles of play to actually improve TTK.

The6thMessenger, on 30 July 2018 - 05:17 PM, said:

And what's the point of them being already pinpoint and used to stare?

Sustained oriented mechs, that's what the Dakkahammer and Dakka Mauler's bread and butter were before the Kodiak turned the meta upside down. Yes, you heard me, sustained DPS mattered more than raw pinpoint alphas at some point in this game. All forced chain-firing does is nerf smaller weapons and change the dynamic from being about maximizing the damage while staring

The6thMessenger, on 30 July 2018 - 05:17 PM, said:

But as opposed to the ******* that is ED, it's not limited to 30 damage. You don't just need to find the most efficient way to add up 30 damage -- which is by stacking the very same weapons together, there's no ceiling, only diminishing returns. And it wouldn't be up to the 30 damage, it's up to the player's preferences and situation.

The result is still the same whether there is a soft cap or hard cap.

The6thMessenger, on 30 July 2018 - 05:17 PM, said:

I say, either.

Then your goal is impossible. The problem is that no system can balance bracket builds and specialized builds the way you want. The reason is that the tonnage you spend in specialization always rewards you enough to make the difference. This can't be a global thing either because some mechs are DESIGNED to be specialists. At the heart of this is that without some way to restrict mechs to ensure that they aren't able to exploit any heat/ammo boosts to boost the efficacy of bracket builds enough it will have to be one or the other.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 30 July 2018 - 05:44 PM.

[Khobai]

no thanks. I dont want to incentivize chain firing. because boating isnt the problem. ghost heat already makes boating too many weapons of the same type unprofitable.

the problem is the loopholes in the ghost heat system that allow you to combine DIFFERENT weapons with similar firing profiles/rangebands while circumventing ghost heat.

closing up all the ghost heat loopholes remains the best way to fix the problem. its the least invasive way to fix the problem because ghost heat is the game mechanic everyone is already familiar with. You arnt radically changing the game in a way that will make a lot of people quit overnight.

Tarl Cabot, on 30 July 2018 - 05:33 PM, said:

Even MG would generate some heat since a player is not pulling a trigger, he is holding down the trigger.

well MGs should have ghost heat. they should give MGs an insignificant amount of heat that spikes exponentially once you start firing 8+ machine guns. that would prevent you from sustaining fire with 12 machine guns for indefinite periods of time. it would help bring clan mgspam into parity with IS mechs that cant run as many machine guns.

Edited by Khobai, 30 July 2018 - 05:53 PM.

[The6thMessenger]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 05:37 PM, said:

If the goal is improve TTK, then alphas won't be the "main style" which implies that chain-firing will be the most effective way of doing damage because you will have to kill both Gauss/PPC/vomit styles of play AND dakka styles of play to actually improve TTK.

But Improve is a subjective term. Being high does not necessarily mean it's good.

Also the system does not necessarily eliminate Vomit-Styles, hell it even brings back Gauss-PPC at a degree. The goal is to make a less extreme version of GH system, that boating would still be allowed, but it is balanced by making chainfiring more heat efficient.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 05:37 PM, said:

Sustained oriented mechs, that's what the Dakkahammer and Dakka Mauler's bread and butter were before the Kodiak turned the meta upside down. Yes, you heard me, sustained DPS mattered more than raw pinpoint alphas at some point in this game. All forced chain-firing does is nerf smaller weapons and change the dynamic from being about maximizing the damage while staring

And why would "At some point" be relevant? Our concern is right now! Are you implying that we'd go back to the point that DPS mattered more than poking? And is that really bad? You need to stare to deal good DPS, while taking damage back. That's actually reasonable.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 05:37 PM, said:

Lol, how is this line any different than what goes on with the ghost heat loopholes?

Probably because it won't be a specific set made by PGI, but a specific set at the choice of players.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 05:37 PM, said:

The result is still the same whether there is a soft cap or hard cap.

But the problem with hard cap is that it's too restrictive. Being a soft-cap means there's at least more leeway into building and playing.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 05:37 PM, said:

Then your goal is impossible. The problem is that no system can balance bracket builds and specialized builds the way you want. The reason is that the tonnage you spend in specialization always rewards you enough to make the difference. This can't be a global thing either because some mechs are DESIGNED to be specialists. At the heart of this is that without some way to restrict mechs to ensure that they aren't able to exploit any heat/ammo boosts to boost the efficacy of bracket builds enough it will have to be one or the other.

Impossible is a familiar friend. My aim is to simply get it as close than what it was before, not to completely eliminate it.

Khobai, on 30 July 2018 - 05:44 PM, said:

no thanks. I dont want to incentivize chain firing. because boating isnt the problem. ghost heat already makes boating too many weapons of the same type unprofitable.

the problem is the loopholes in the ghost heat system that allow you to combine DIFFERENT weapons with similar firing profiles/rangebands while circumventing ghost heat.

Incentivising Chainfiring is the counterbalance i devised, when we want to eliminate the GH loopholes that results to boating being not extremely discouraged.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 30 July 2018 - 05:57 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

The6thMessenger, on 30 July 2018 - 05:53 PM, said:

And why would "At some point" be relevant? Our concern is right now! Are you implying that we'd go back to the point that DPS mattered more than poking? And is that really bad? You need to stare to deal good DPS, while taking damage back. That's actually reasonable.

The point is that all of this is unnecessary to make DPS matter again. The point is that DPS can be made valuable without doing all of this crap and in fact DPS already does matter as that is the WHOLE point of taking Dual Gauss and lasers. You get some of the best alphas and respectable DPS against brawl (especially since almost all brawl weapons have been nerfed repeatedly). That's the reason Gauss vomit is strong, because all of its competition was nerfed (and the fact that Gauss without heat is still stupid).

The6thMessenger, on 30 July 2018 - 05:53 PM, said:

But the problem with hard cap is that it's too restrictive. Being a soft-cap means there's at least more leeway into building and playing.

Does it though? At some point, it becomes inefficient to fire more than so many weapons at the same time. There is a magic line that once crossed means you are wasting heat you just aren't drawing it yourself necessarily. It will exist though. The same thing happens with range compared to how previous games handled it (every weapon was like the current missiles). The real impact that had was just remove the explicit effective range.

The6thMessenger, on 30 July 2018 - 05:53 PM, said:

Incentivising Chainfiring is the counterbalance i devised, when we want to eliminate the GH loopholes that results to boating being not extremely discouraged.

It's a counter balance that makes the game less fun and doesn't even succeed in its goal because even the bracket builds that have actually been in comp boated some small weapon (since small weapons are typically shorter ranged).

[Khobai]

The6thMessenger, on 30 July 2018 - 05:53 PM, said:

Incentivising Chainfiring is the counterbalance i devised, when we want to eliminate the GH loopholes that results to boating being not extremely discouraged.

boating doesnt need to be extremely discouraged though. it just needs to be kept in check with a reasonable upper limit.

but the problem isnt just boating/convergence/whatever... the lack of proper weapon balance is also part of it. For example, CERML never shouldve been allowed in the game at 7 damage for 1 ton. If the weapons are balanced properly it lessens the need to rely so heavily on artificial mechanisms like ghost heat. A big part of the problem is that the weapons are just so poorly balanced that ghost heat struggles to keep up, especially when it has glaring loopholes as well.

theres also the fact that chainfiring is boring. one of the defining characteristics of mechwarrior is being able to fire a lot of weapons at once. that shouldnt be discouraged it should be embraced, within reasonable limits.

Edited by Khobai, 30 July 2018 - 06:08 PM.

[A Headless Chicken]

Laughs in 2 AC20, I mean 4 LRM20.

[The6thMessenger]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 06:02 PM, said:

The point is that all of this is unnecessary to make DPS matter again. The point is that DPS can be made valuable without doing all of this crap and in fact DPS already does matter as that is the WHOLE point of taking Dual Gauss and lasers. You get some of the best alphas and respectable DPS against brawl (especially since almost all brawl weapons have been nerfed repeatedly). That's the reason Gauss vomit is strong, because all of its competition was nerfed (and the fact that Gauss without heat is still stupid).

And the whole point of this system is to dismantle the restrictions of GH. Again, the Chainfiring Incentive is supposed to be the damn counterbalance, when we're finally reducing the heat penalty that allows many weapons at once to be fired without stupidly high heat. Like 3x PPC.

It's not supposed to provide better Sustained DPS, it's supposed to be a damn counter balance, is that really hard to understand?

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 06:02 PM, said:

Does it though?

Yes. Not having 30 damage to fill means you can be more creative in how you mix and match weapons.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 06:02 PM, said:

At some point, it becomes inefficient to fire more than so many weapons at the same time.

Exactly, but it is the same case as with only firing one at a time. That is because you aren't maximizing the limited window of opportunity you have.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 06:02 PM, said:

It's a counter balance that makes the game less fun and doesn't even succeed in its goal because even the bracket builds that have actually been in comp boated some small weapon (since small weapons are typically shorter ranged).

Less fun how? You are "forced" to chainfire, because it's the most heat efficient way to do damage? What about what the situation demands? What if you have enough time to cool down? You say that it's less fun, but what i see is this compulsion to do the most heat-efficient damage without nuance of the situation, and now you don't like it because playstyle meta will shift due to that compulsion.

Lets get this straight, you do not have to chainfire.

Really, do you even understand the goal? Does it eliminate GH loopholes? Well it does, because you no longer could take advantage of different weapon system to go around heat penalty and stack damage. In fact it even brings back Gauss PPC at some degree.

And why would comp people boating weapons be relevant? That was not the issue raised, it's about dealing with the GH loopholes by creating an exponential heat-scale, and the perk of being able to boat more large weapons than what the GH is allowed, is counter-balanced by incentivized chainfiring.

Khobai, on 30 July 2018 - 06:07 PM, said:

boating doesnt need to be extremely discouraged though. it just needs to be kept in check with a reasonable upper limit.

Extremely discouraged? Can i just point out that, 3x PPC results in an extremely high heat penalty on GH system, while mine has less?

CERPPC New Heat = 29 / 3 = 9.6667
CERPPC SWHP = 2.4168

(9.6667 x 3) + (2.4168 x 9) = 29.0001 + 21.7512 = 50.7513.

Put that into perspective, 3x CERPPC at current GH would produce 61.77.

Considering that it's heat penalty is completely lesser than it was before, I say it's a direction that is less discouraging to boating. Wait a minute, does your logic goes that the more you are encouraged to chainfire, the more you are discouraged in boating?

I'm pretty sure that you can boat, but it's just the Alpha is a different story. And again, there should be a balance between heat, and the face-time and it is dictated by the player. If we just go to the most heat-inefficient playstyle, it would be just as stupidly heat-efficient as 20 DHS on a 2-gauss-only build. You aren't building up heat at all, why be too heat efficient?

Khobai, on 30 July 2018 - 06:07 PM, said:

but the problem isnt just boating/convergence/whatever... the lack of proper weapon balance is also part of it. For example, CERML never shouldve been allowed in the game at 7 damage for 1 ton. If the weapons are balanced properly it lessens the need to rely so heavily on artificial mechanisms like ghost heat. A big part of the problem is that the weapons are just so poorly balanced that ghost heat struggles to keep up, especially when it has glaring loopholes as well.

Well, one step at a time.

Khobai, on 30 July 2018 - 06:07 PM, said:

theres also the fact that chainfiring is boring. one of the defining characteristics of mechwarrior is being able to fire a lot of weapons at once. that shouldnt be discouraged it should be embraced, within reasonable limits.

We have things to balance. This system, if anything encourages boating, beyond what GHs allows. Again, the Chainfire being incentivized is supposed to be the counterbalance.

If you don't like chainfiring because it's boring, well you don't have to. You can just keep alphaing as you wanted before. Simmilarly, you don't have to take LRMs in your weapons if you don't want to.

But the system in place is made so that boating is not extremely discouraged by stupidly high heat. If we take away the chain-fire incentivizing while simply making weapon boating not that penalized, then there's little reason NOT to boat and we're looking at even less diverse builds and boating being the norm.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 30 July 2018 - 07:39 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

The6thMessenger, on 30 July 2018 - 06:47 PM, said:

And the whole point of this system is to dismantle the restrictions of GH. Again, the Chainfiring Incentive is supposed to be the damn counterbalance, when we're finally reducing the heat penalty that allows many weapons at once to be fired without stupidly high heat. Like 3x PPC.

It's not supposed to provide better Sustained DPS, it's supposed to be a damn counter balance, is that really hard to understand?

Alright, congrats, you've allowed 3 PPCs to not cause stupidly high heat? Now it competes directly with the HPPC again and actually is slightly more heat efficient with the penalty. Wat do now? Let's say you increase the heat penalty though to be more significant similar to what we saw happen with ED because it barely penalized certain builds. Well now you are back to ED after they increased the penalties, you are back to DPS spam being the main go to because you can't do enough burst damage to justify the lower overall DPS your build has. This is just another version of ED and it is just as bad because of it.

The6thMessenger, on 30 July 2018 - 06:47 PM, said:

Yes. Not having 30 damage to fill means you can be more creative in how you mix and match weapons.

No it doesn't, you throw on similar weapons so that you can either fire them simultaneously up to the point where weapons start to become more inefficient than adding just another group to fire after the ghost heat trigger expires. Virtually the same thing happened with ED.

The6thMessenger, on 30 July 2018 - 06:47 PM, said:

Well it does, because you no longer could take advantage of different weapon system to go around heat penalty and stack damage.

That is THE single thing that really separated Ghost heat from ED and it is the SAME reason that ghost heat is better BECAUSE it allows loopholes that allow stacking of damage to make mixed weapon builds actually more effective than single weapon boats.

The6thMessenger, on 30 July 2018 - 06:47 PM, said:

Less fun how? You are "forced" to chainfire, because it's the most heat efficient way to do damage?

Yes, why do you think the big punch weapons suffered so bad with ED? They all sacrifice sustained damage in someway in exchange for that bigger punch. When you take away the ability to punish pushes or rushes with significant enough damage, you are left with a DPS arms race because a push can force a poke style drop dec into a position such that it can no longer take advantage of cover and without cover, DPS is king.



Btw, this is the math in its reduced form:
New Heat Value = Current Heat / NHV Constant
Static Weapon Heat Penalty = (old heat Value - new heat Value) / Current GH
Static Weapon Heat Penalty = (Current Heat * (1 - inverse of NHV Constant)) / Current GH

[The6thMessenger]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 07:49 PM, said:

Alright, congrats, you've allowed 3 PPCs to not cause stupidly high heat? Now it competes directly with the HPPC again and actually is slightly more heat efficient with the penalty. Wat do now? Let's say you increase the heat penalty though to be more significant similar to what we saw happen with ED because it barely penalized certain builds. Well now you are back to ED after they increased the penalties, you are back to DPS spam being the main go to because you can't do enough burst damage to justify the lower overall DPS your build has. This is just another version of ED and it is just as bad because of it.

iPPC New Heat = 19 / 3 = 6.3333
iPPC SWHP = (19 - 12.6667) / 4 = 1.583325

iHPPC New Heat = 29 / 3 = 9.6667
iHPPC SWHP = (29 - 19.3334) / 4 = 2.41665

PPC would do 4.749975 extra heat, effectively each PPC is 11.083275, and 3 PPC would do 33.249825 heat. Compare from HPPC, that means (9.6667 x 2) + (2.41665 x 4) = 29.

Dafuq are you talking about, how is it slightly more heat efficient? 3 PPC does 0.9023 damage/heat, while 2x HPPC does 1.0345 damage/heat.

Okay, suppose that we had 4x HPPC vs 6x PPC. Each PPC would do 9.49995 extra heat, effectively 15.83325, at a total of 94.9995 heat. HPPC would do 9.666 + 9.6667 = 19.3333 heat, at a total of 77.3332 heat. Again, how is PPC even more heat efficient?

Looks like your math is off. And do what in the first place? Wouldn't that completely invalidate the next part about being back into DPS?

And supposed that we accepted your faulty math? why would it back to just DPS just as ED would? The hardcap of 30 means anything above 30 would be penalized, so they have to stick under it. This system penalizes anything above 1 weapon being fired all at once. Did you mean DPS because people would try to just maximize sustained DPS or just build what can be easily fired again? Why would that be bad? Because you don't like it? Why are we not allowed to be frustrated with the boring poke meta instead?

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 07:49 PM, said:

No it doesn't, you throw on similar weapons so that you can either fire them simultaneously up to the point where weapons start to become more inefficient than adding just another group to fire after the ghost heat trigger expires. Virtually the same thing happened with ED.

So in ED you are forced to divide volleys by 30? Again, the cap is different. It's based on how much damage you can balance between volley, not because it's 30.

Is that the only standard you criticize this idea from? Because there's a lot more bad in ED than just the volley partitioning, like why on earth they were changing more than just heat value, why even slower acs?

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 07:49 PM, said:

That is THE single thing that really separated Ghost heat from ED and it is the SAME reason that ghost heat is better BECAUSE it allows loopholes that allow stacking of damage to make mixed weapon builds actually more effective than single weapon boats.

And again, the alpha that results in those loopholes is the damn problem. So you are forced to combine different weapon types, why does that have any merit? You put together CERML + CHLL, it looks mixed weapons, until you realize it's practically the same poke.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 07:49 PM, said:

Yes, why do you think the big punch weapons suffered so bad with ED? They all sacrifice sustained damage in someway in exchange for that bigger punch. When you take away the ability to punish pushes or rushes with significant enough damage, you are left with a DPS arms race because a push can force a poke style drop dec into a position such that it can no longer take advantage of cover and without cover, DPS is king.

I don't see why poking should go on top of this? Isn't that the point of pushes in the first place? But okay, the immense damage is supposed to be the deterrent, now why couldn't you just partition your salvo just as they would? You'd still be doing damage, you are still lowering their chances of survival when they get to you because now you have the armor advantage and they don't.

And i really don't get how could you increase DPS by partitioning your shots -- you mean sustained dps? Because if you're opting only to fire a few lasers per volley, you aren't saving heat, you're wasting time. A poker could unload all it's vomit to you -- while you're still about to shoot the other volley. I suppose that the system does restrict so much damage all at once with a lot of heat, but it's not like it can't be adjusted to satisfactory levels.

I mean if we allow high damage alpha with the same system, you are still looking at a deterrent for pokers. The only extreme upside is that, people can opt for better heat-efficiency and better sustained DPS, but why would that matter if they don't even live long enough? We still get to the same stupidly high-heat-efficiency comparable to 2-GR-only build with 20 DHS.

But okay sure, if that's the case that does not answer high alpha damage like it was supposed to, what good of an answer it is? Well, it's still a better system than ED, while eliminating GH loopholes, it returns builds such as 2x Gauss + PPC or 2x PPC + Gauss without too high of heat penalty. We can just make further adjustments to account for the scenarios you said that would be detrimental.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 07:49 PM, said:

New Heat Value = Current Heat / NHV Constant
Static Weapon Heat Penalty = (old heat Value - new heat Value) / Current GH
Static Weapon Heat Penalty = (Current Heat * (1 - inverse of NHV Constant)) / Current GH

Ok TY. Although i specifically tried to remove Current GH on the Individual Weapon Heat Penalty, because it takes account that weapons may have different heat and heat-penalty because PGI didn't used the transform equations.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 30 July 2018 - 09:02 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

The6thMessenger, on 30 July 2018 - 08:54 PM, said:

iPPC New Heat = 19 / 3 = 6.3333
iPPC SWHP = (19 - 12.6667) / 4 = 1.583325

iHPPC New Heat = 29 / 3 = 9.6667
iHPPC SWHP = (29 - 19.3334) / 4 = 2.41665

PPC would do 4.749975 extra heat, effectively each PPC is 11.083275, and 3 PPC would do 33.249825 heat. Compare from HPPC, that means (9.6667 x 2) + (2.41665 x 4) = 29.

Dafuq are you talking about, how is it slightly more heat efficient? 3 PPC does 0.9023 damage/heat, while 2x HPPC does 1.0345 damage/heat.

Okay, suppose that we had 4x HPPC vs 6x PPC. Each PPC would do 9.49995 extra heat, effectively 15.83325, at a total of 94.9995 heat. HPPC would do 9.666 + 9.6667 = 19.3333 heat, at a total of 77.3332 heat. Again, how is PPC even more heat efficient?

Looks like your math is off. And do what in the first place? Wouldn't that completely invalidate the next part about being back into DPS?

My math was indeed off.

That said, this does beg the question, how dafuq do you expect to explain this to new players, let alone make heads or tails of what is a good build. Someone will do the math but the fact such heavy math is involved....seriously? The system isn't intuitive and it is required to get a basic grasp of how to make a good effective build. Ghost heat is at least mildly simple in comparison.

This game suffers from too many stupidly complex systems. Whether it be interactions of sensors (ECM/TAG/lock-on/NARC/etc) or the build complexity or this new system that requires you do equations just to figure out what the heat looks like each time a weapon is fired.......and for what? All so we get rid of the at least somewhat simple in comparison ghost heat system? I would take ED over this simply because it was at least a bit more explanatory.

The6thMessenger, on 30 July 2018 - 08:54 PM, said:

Is that the only standard you criticize this idea from? Because there's a lot more bad in ED than just the volley partitioning, like why on earth they were changing more than just heat value, why even slower acs?

They slowed down ACs because ACs would've been the goto weapon for any assault that could possibly mount them, same with heavies. It became a game of what loadout allows me to spam 30 alphas the longest. This will be no different if the goal is honestly to punish large enough alphas (which you've implied with your "close the loopholes" rhetoric). Gauss will still be a problem mind you since it still has the lowest heat value, but mixing other slightly disparate weapons that might've caused inaccuracies before because of slightly different velocities, won't be a problem anymore because there isn't as much incentive to not just stack a weapon. Why stack UAC5s and PPCs to get around ghost heat when you can just stack PPCs? Why mount UAC10s and 5s together if it no longer gets you around the ghost heat limit, now you can just stack ACs to your heart's content without having to deal with different velocities.

The6thMessenger, on 30 July 2018 - 08:54 PM, said:

And again, the alpha that results in those loopholes is the damn problem. So you are forced to combine different weapon types, why does that have any merit? You put together CERML + CHLL, it looks mixed weapons, until you realize it's practically the same poke.

In the case of Gauss/PPCs, Dakka/PPCs, or Gauss/Lasers it forces you to use somewhat disparate weapons to achieve the same result rather than use cERML and cHLL (which not really sure who even bothers with this outside of lower queues). Would you really prefer 6-8 ERLL Clan assaults or 5-6 UAC5 Clan assaults or 4 UAC10 Clan assaults that just volley fire constantly? This is what happens when you don't leave loopholes, builds find a way to be even more bland than before because there is no build restrictions that stop them from doing just that. IS isn't better either, it will suffer the EXACT same thing.

This is why ED was a failure because it didn't discourage boating or mixed builds any better than ghost heat and in fact as worse.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 30 July 2018 - 09:22 PM.