54 replies to this topic

[The6thMessenger]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 09:17 PM, said:

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.

I admit, this new heatscale means we'll be throwing away what we think is good. I think we're just going to have to experiment.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 09:17 PM, said:

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.

As opposed of the vague "Firing more than x amount of weapon will incur more heat"? Well, just show the amount of heat penalty and say "Weapon will do x extra heat for every weapon in your volley". If anything, players would know how to calculate for extra heat, as opposed of the current heatscale needing an entire table when you're exceeding alpha limits.

Sure, it's less math intensive if you're just keeping under alpha limit. But hey it's not like people can't experiment, and that's really a big part of MWO due to the MechLab.

To get this straight, the first two equations are just transform equations, it's used to translate current heat to the new system. It's totally possible to put their own heat and heat penalty. All you really need to explain is that, weapons will have more heat when firing in volleys.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 09:17 PM, said:

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.

Okay, how is shooting 14 alphas even longer be helpful? At least you aren't capped with 30 damage, with this system you have a choice to go over.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 09:17 PM, said:

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).

I don't see why that would be bad.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 09:17 PM, said:

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.

Pretty sure they could just volley fire like that right now. But okay, sure maybe you mean that the alternatives are worse that it's best to just chainfire those weapons. And if we're talking about bland, how is point-shooting laser vomits not bland?

As we talk right now, it really sounds more like a direction you just don't want to go, than an actually problematic route. If they want to chainfire weapons like those, why not go for it? There's a reason why chainfiring isn't that loved, and it's because it's increasing stare time that prevents damage spreading around the mech. Supposed that they just resorted to that, they are forgoing durability over stupidly heat-efficient playstyles.

I think you're conflating playstyles with weapon mixtures. And if anything, the difference between lasers, with ACs or Missiles means they are unlikely to be fired together, considering the lead needed for a moving target. And if they are being fired together, the ACs would only accrue little heat penalty, while being able to shoot more times that it doesn't trigger so much heat because the lasers would be in cooldown.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 09:17 PM, said:

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.

Well, this system is not supposed to discourage boating, if anything it encourages it. The chainfiring aspect is the counterbalance, one which you dismiss because you don't appreciate it. Simple as that.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 30 July 2018 - 09:42 PM.

[Khobai]

The6thMessenger, on 30 July 2018 - 09:39 PM, said:

As opposed of the vague "Firing more than x amount of weapon will incur more heat"?

The difference is ghost heat is an established system weve had in place for a while. So its not really vague anymore. Because a lot of the players know how it works and anyone who wants to learn how ghost heat works can easily find out. And there's charts for ghost heat that are easily accessible.

Changing what we already have to a completely different system which would confuse the hell out of people to the point where they quit the game makes no sense. Just fix ghost heat. Thats all thats required. Close off the loopholes.

There is no need to create another convoluted system to replace the existing convoluted system. Thats the same exact mistake they tried to do with energy draw. If youre going to replace ghost heat with anything it should be a system thats simplified and more intuitive, not equally as convoluted.

Edited by Khobai, 31 July 2018 - 12:29 AM.

[The6thMessenger]

Khobai, on 31 July 2018 - 12:25 AM, said:

The difference is ghost heat is an established system weve had in place for a while. So its not really vague anymore.

If we're including experience, why would having to know how to calculate heat be more of an issue? It's not like people couldn't just learn the new system through experience, just as they learned GH like before through experience.

Khobai, on 31 July 2018 - 12:25 AM, said:

Because a lot of the players know how it works and anyone who wants to learn how ghost heat works can easily find out. And there's charts for ghost heat that are easily accessible.

How would "Each weapon will produce extra heat multiplied to the amount of weapons fired within a single volley." be that hard to understand? Damn, there's no charts too.

Khobai, on 31 July 2018 - 12:25 AM, said:

Changing what we already have to a completely different system which would confuse the hell out of people to the point where they quit the game makes no sense. Just fix ghost heat. Thats all thats required. Close off the loopholes.

So when we talk "people", is it the usual you misrepresenting the entire playerbase?

How would weapons doing exponential heat gain based on the amount of weapons done in a single volley hard to understand? How is, firing weapons individually would be cooler versus firing them all at once be hard to understand?

Sure, i guess with now the current system ingrained, it's going to be a ***** and a half to learn a new trick. But is that really all you have against?

If anything, GH is not exactly that much of a present system we see because most of the time people just avoid the ghost heat. Basically they just know not to shoot weapons all at once if it's above the max alpha.

Same thing with this system, all they really need to understand is that you have better heat efficiency if you chainfired. All the math could just be under the hood.

Khobai, on 31 July 2018 - 12:25 AM, said:

There is no need to create another convoluted system to replace the existing convoluted system. Thats the same exact mistake they tried to do with energy draw. If youre going to replace ghost heat with anything it should be a system thats simplified and more intuitive, not equally as convoluted.

Convoluted? Again how hard is it really to understand that, this system provides exponential heat gain with the amount of weapons shot in a single volley?

[Ensaine]

Just ..... NO .........

No math, no discourse, just ..... NO......

[LordNothing]

i suggested algoritm driven ghost heat awhile ago. main thing was to keep alphas from being the dominant usage scenario. current heat state combines with how your weapons are being used to give you fair penalties that dont rely on a bunch of arbitrary ghost heat groups.

[Mole]

[Kin3ticX]

I can't wait until you guys convince PGI to make it so we sandblast each other down to 8 percent before somebody dies.

It might actually be working because balance is probably the worst it has ever been in terms of fun. I mean, sure, Chris whack-o-moled some stuff and is trying to normalize power levels, but, there has to be a degree of imbalance to perfect balance. Otherwise you end up with a boring game. Im being honest here, the current game is what happens when you let a fanboi get in the hen house and achieve his laundry list of pet ideas, vs actual conventional game balance design.

It also doesn't help that PGI has a stock mode and a bracket build fetish now.

Edited by Kin3ticX, 31 July 2018 - 07:25 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

The6thMessenger, on 30 July 2018 - 09:39 PM, said:

Well, this system is not supposed to discourage boating, if anything it encourages it. The chainfiring aspect is the counterbalance, one which you dismiss because you don't appreciate it. Simple as that.

FFS. Ghost heat was intended to curb single weapon boating which has been rampant through Mechwarrior's history (not just MWO). That's its purpose, and it succeeded at that better than preposed replacements. Why? Because none of the proposed replacements have ever included that as part of their intent. Every "replacement" design since then has been an attempt to curb alpha/burst damage which doesn't need anything to actually curb because it hasn't been dominant throughout MWO's history (in fact the balance before the skill tree and laser rebalance was pretty good) and it has been why all of these designs have ultimately failed. They ultimately encourage the old single weapon boats AND they remove burst damage from being an actual counter to DPS oriented drop decs which make the game extremely shallow once you figure things out. If you think this magically makes those bracket builds more appealing then you are in for a rude awakening because DPS will reign supreme because you aren't preventing mechs like AC5s or AC2 from just being macro'd and just maximizing damage when you face stare something. Same with the ML boats. This has been seen before and would happen again if this were implemented (if the punishment is high enough to lower alphas mind you).

You want bracket builds?

• Halve armor/structure/heat capacity/heat dissipation/ghost heat thresholds
  
• Add heat to gauss and/or reduce charge up limit to 1
  
• ???
  
• Profit

Mediums and lights can now specialize but heavies and assaults have trouble finding enough space to mount all the DHS to specialize which makes it easier to just mount weapons to round out your build.

[LordNothing]

you could solve the gauss problems with ghost charge. hell with that feature you can get rid of the charge limit. want to fire multiple gauss rifles, charge time just takes an eternity, but you can do it. you can also make the gauss output its heat durring the charge cycle so the long charge could multiply the heat such that firing large 4x gauss alphas get things warm. ignoring the fact that every section of your mech will explode the second the armor is gone. even the worst case gauss alpha under this system is smaller than what my helby can do with its laser alpha.

also the most minimally viable fix to the laser alpha problem i can think of is to stick the erml in the same ghost heat group as the hll/lpl. and then you force those helbies to do a 1-2 punch rather than a full alpha, lest you ghost.

Edited by LordNothing, 31 July 2018 - 02:20 PM.

[Khobai]

You know what? Bracket builds suck in tabletop battletech too. Look at the Atlas its one of the worst assaults in tabletop because of its bracket build nature. Other assaults like the Awesome absolutely crush the Atlas because all their weapons can fire at the same range.

And you know what the best stock mech for competitive battletech was? The sagitarrius. Why? because of pulse laser vomit.

Bracket builds should not be forced on players. They are bad. And it feels bad playing them.

LordNothing, on 31 July 2018 - 02:09 PM, said:

also the most minimally viable fix to the laser alpha problem i can think of is to stick the erml in the same group as the hll/lpl. and then you force those helbies to do a 1-2 punch rather than a full alpha, lest you ghost.

doesnt fix gauss vomit.

in fact it just forces clan players to gauss vomit since laser vomit would be dead.

I still think the only fix we need for now is CERML to 6 damage, CHLL to 16-17 damage, and CGauss to 12 damage but with a faster rate of fire and increased range (so its like a hybrid light/regular gauss).

That sufficiently lowers the max alphas to about the same as what IS is capable of.

Edited by Khobai, 31 July 2018 - 02:30 PM.

[The6thMessenger]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 31 July 2018 - 10:39 AM, said:

FFS. Ghost heat was intended to curb single weapon boating which has been rampant through Mechwarrior's history (not just MWO). That's its purpose, and it succeeded at that better than preposed replacements.

Why? Because none of the proposed replacements have ever included that as part of their intent. Every "replacement" design since then has been an attempt to curb alpha/burst damage which doesn't need anything to actually curb because it hasn't been dominant throughout MWO's history (in fact the balance before the skill tree and laser rebalance was pretty good) and it has been why all of these designs have ultimately failed. They ultimately encourage the old single weapon boats AND they remove burst damage from being an actual counter to DPS oriented drop decs which make the game extremely shallow once you figure things out.

If you think this magically makes those bracket builds more appealing then you are in for a rude awakening because DPS will reign supreme because you aren't preventing mechs like AC5s or AC2 from just being macro'd and just maximizing damage when you face stare something. Same with the ML boats. This has been seen before and would happen again if this were implemented

(if the punishment is high enough to lower alphas mind you).

Yeah, IF the punishment is high enough to lower alphas.

This is just a proposed concept with how to deal with boating without resorting to extremes like the current GH. There could have been a completely different heat curve than what I proposed but still follow an exponential trend, but the idea is simply to incentivize chainfiring to counter boating, instead of simply discouraging boating through extreme means.

You keep resorting to this "DPS" vs "Burst" damage, as if somehow i am actively trying to destroy Burst damage. No, i wasn't, i was simply trying to remove the loophole created by GH, that produces a god-awful amount of alpha damage. To compensate for burst damage, again, the heat curve could be adjusted to allow sensible heat buildup.

But wait, are you concerned exactly that because heat efficiency skyrockets with lesser weapon in a volley? Why? This does not mean you are doing good damage, as in why would chainfiring 2 CERML lasers be conducive to instance with small windows of time. What, you have a compulsion to do the most heat efficient thing? You couldn't just experiment, find a balance of weapons, and stick to it?

You mean ACs chainfire? Well again, could have been different heat curve. But okay, really how much merit could you give when they're hosing the enemy, that ends up even more spread damage?

And why do you keep including this "bracket build" concern? Might as well be a strawman. That was never the concern.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 31 July 2018 - 02:53 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

The6thMessenger, on 31 July 2018 - 02:39 PM, said:

Yeah, IF the punishment is high enough to lower alphas.

If it isn't, then it isn't making chainfire good enough to bother with meaning it failed at its entire intent (to curb boating, as you mention below).

The6thMessenger, on 31 July 2018 - 02:39 PM, said:

This is just a proposed concept with how to deal with boating without resorting to extremes like the current GH.

By your own admission it doesn't actually deal with boating, only specific boats (mixed weapon boats). Removing the efficiency of mixed weapon boats by removing loopholes just means you are back to single weapon boat.

The6thMessenger, on 31 July 2018 - 02:39 PM, said:

There could have been a completely different heat curve than what I proposed, but the idea is simply to incentivize chainfiring to counter boating, instead of simply discouraging boating through extreme means.

Here's the problem, incentivizing chainfiring doesn't remove the benefits of boating. It isn't a counter balance and never has been. Why? Because it is still easier to chainfire the same weapon type that way you don't have to do 2 adjustments to fire your next volley. 6 Large Lasers is easier to chainfire than 2 Large Lasers, and LRM20, an AC20, and whatever else. Not to mention again, DPS weapons become the top end because a single Gauss hit even chainfired is not going to be enough upfront damage to matter. There is a reason I keep bringing up ED and it is because it had the EXACT same impact on the game.

For example why bother chainfiring 4 PPCs when you can setup a macro for UAC2s/UAC5s that deal significantly better DPS and make more effective use of the time spent staring at things?

The6thMessenger, on 31 July 2018 - 02:39 PM, said:

And why do you keep including this "bracket build" concern? Might as well be a strawman. That was never the concern.

Bracket builds, true mixed builds, they are in this game one in the same and yes they are a concern if you are creating a system that is meant at curbing "boating" weapons of a similar design. This basically comes down to curbing specialist designs to make generalists more competitive.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 31 July 2018 - 02:54 PM.

[The6thMessenger]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 31 July 2018 - 02:51 PM, said:

If it isn't, then it isn't making chainfire good enough to bother with meaning it failed at its entire intent (to curb boating, as you mention below).

Really? We literally just couldn't make an instance where chainfiring is adequately rewarded, while alphaing is adequately powerful?

Are you sure that it's just because you don't want it?

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 31 July 2018 - 02:51 PM, said:

By your own admission it doesn't actually deal with boating, only specific boats (mixed weapon boats).

Sure.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 31 July 2018 - 02:51 PM, said:

Removing the efficiency of mixed weapon boats by removing loopholes just means you are back to single weapon boat.

Lol. Again, why does mixed weapon boats deserve merit when they're being used in exactly the same way as the other weapons? Is it just a damn checkbox to you? To fit a quota?

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 31 July 2018 - 02:51 PM, said:

Here's the problem, incentivizing chainfiring doesn't remove the benefits of boating. It isn't a counter balance and never has been. Why? Because it is still easier to chainfire the same weapon type that way you don't have to do 2 adjustments to fire your next volley.

Why are you conflating boating with alpha? Boating a specific build, alpha is shooting all weapons at once.

Is that the crux of this debacle? The system proposed is used to deal with the alpha, that allows boating at a reasonable margin, depending on implementation.

Synchronicity with weapons aren't really that my concern. And if they don't want to deal with the desynced weapon groups, that is people's prerogative, it could be because they needed the damage/ton. Isn't that it was just the alpha damage why we boat Medium Lasers with Large Lasers in the first place despite being desynced? Basically, it's hardly relevant.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 31 July 2018 - 02:51 PM, said:

Not to mention again, DPS weapons become the top end because a single Gauss hit even chainfired is not going to be enough upfront damage to matter.

You do know you could still fire two gauss right?

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 31 July 2018 - 02:51 PM, said:

There is a reason I keep bringing up ED and it is because it had the EXACT same impact on the game.

Not a good reason, because ED has a completely different setup. Not only we're looking at a system that's actually tested, it has solid stats that were in place. IIRC, there's actually a different suggestion called Power Draw, and people liked that more versus Energy Draw, even if it was the same concept.

This is just in the concept phase, all it does is outline how would the system works. The actual stats is missing for us to have a completely honest discussion about solid outcomes.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 31 July 2018 - 02:51 PM, said:

For example why bother chainfiring 4 PPCs when you can setup a macro for UAC2s/UAC5s that deal significantly better DPS and make more effective use of the time spent staring at things?

Same reason why we don't chainfire 4 PPC right now, because PPCs are made to put a lot of damage at single instances. It's to serve poke playstyle that maximizes damage with minimal exposure time.

Not to mention that macroing UACs is just dumb, you are losing DPS. And again we keep going to this stupidly heat-efficient instances, why would that have so much merit? If you aren't using the heat-gauge that well, then you're just wasting time. It's just as stupid as 20 DHS on a 2x Gauss-only build.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 31 July 2018 - 02:51 PM, said:

Bracket builds, true mixed builds, they are in this game one in the same and yes they are a concern if you are creating a system that is meant at curbing "boating" weapons of a similar design. This basically comes down to curbing specialist designs to make generalists more competitive.

You say that as if we can't just allow good specialist design, while having competitive generalist designs.

This really sounds more like preference than just actual balance concern. It's funny that you said they'd make even blander single-weapon boat builds, but then there's bracket builds that you are so concerned about.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 31 July 2018 - 03:36 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

The6thMessenger, on 31 July 2018 - 03:18 PM, said:

Really? We literally just couldn't make an instance where chainfiring is adequately rewarded, while alphaing is adequately powerful?

Look, builds tend to fall in some end of the spectrum of time in how they deal most of their damage. You have builds like Gauss/PPC which deal all their damage in a single instant. Then you have builds like laser vomit or the old Dakka Kodiak that deal damage in a burst (and generally do more damage per burst than front loaded or instant builds). Then you have mechs like the Dakkahammer and Dakka Mauler that rely on sustained damage (and the enemy being caught in the open or forced into the open) and can just keep firing. Chainfiring is like sustained damage builds, they are meant to punish mechs caught in the open and punish them with just constant damage (and significant damage at that, the Dakka Mauler did half a Gauss/PPC Kodiak salvo per shot and it could do so every 1.5s). Let's say you force mechs with higher instant/burst damage to chainfire, this hurts them significantly more because their damage is much more saturated like sustained DPS mechs (which typically have the highest DPS of any mech because they don't do much upfront damage and thus do less concentrated damage). Forcing a dakka mech to chain fire doesn't really phase it much especially when you are removing 40-50 instant damage pokes. At that point chainfiring a bunch of instant damage weapons seems silly because the differences between instant damage boats and dakka boats is much less, the line becomes blurred to the point that it simply becomes bad to bother with those instant damage weapons instead of dakka. This is why chainfiring and anything related to it HAS NEVER been a counter balance to boating, all it does it shift the balance towards once specific type of boat.

The6thMessenger, on 31 July 2018 - 03:18 PM, said:

Lol. Again, why does mixed weapon boats deserve merit when they're being used in exactly the same way as the other weapons? Is it just a damn checkbox to you? To fit a quota?

Because they aren't as simple to use and they are more fun to play? Do you really need more than that?

Gauss/PPC isn't as simple to use as just quad PPC. Gauss/lasers isn't as simple to use as just pure laser vomit. Both are more fun to play than their "pure" boat forms.

The6thMessenger, on 31 July 2018 - 03:18 PM, said:

Synchronicity with weapons aren't really that my concern

It should be because that is one of the main reasons for single weapon boating.

The6thMessenger, on 31 July 2018 - 03:18 PM, said:

Not a good reason, because ED has a completely different setup. Not only we're looking at a system that's actually tested, it has solid stats that were in place. IIRC, there's actually a different suggestion called Power Draw, and people liked that more versus Energy Draw, even if it was the same concept.

The only difference between power draw and energy draw is that instead of accuracy being negatively impacted, heat was. Similar setup, punish weapons firing past a certain threshold and removing loopholes of ghost heat.

The6thMessenger, on 31 July 2018 - 03:18 PM, said:

You say that as if we can't just allow good specialist design, while having competitive generalist designs.

I never said that, what I said is a single system will never make that achievable, not even the idea I suggested above. It will take arbitrary balance adjustments to make that happen, and a significantly more restricted mechlab to avoid exploitation of any of the arbitrary balance adjustments. The reason is because generalist designs have to be pretty competent at whatever roles they are trying to achieve compared to specialists to be worth taking. To do that requires significant buffs and restrictions to avoid exploitation of those buffs for specialist roles.

[The6thMessenger]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 31 July 2018 - 04:14 PM, said:

Look, builds tend to fall in some end of the spectrum of time in how they deal most of their damage.

Spoiler

You have builds like Gauss/PPC which deal all their damage in a single instant. Then you have builds like laser vomit or the old Dakka Kodiak that deal damage in a burst (and generally do more damage per burst than front loaded or instant builds).

Then you have mechs like the Dakkahammer and Dakka Mauler that rely on sustained damage (and the enemy being caught in the open or forced into the open) and can just keep firing. Chainfiring is like sustained damage builds, they are meant to punish mechs caught in the open and punish them with just constant damage (and significant damage at that, the Dakka Mauler did half a Gauss/PPC Kodiak salvo per shot and it could do so every 1.5s).

Let's say you force mechs with higher instant/burst damage to chainfire, this hurts them significantly more because their damage is much more saturated like sustained DPS mechs (which typically have the highest DPS of any mech because they don't do much upfront damage and thus do less concentrated damage).

"Force"? No, they are incentivised to chainfire, different thing. That being said, sure shooting the usual laservomit meta now yields higher heat than what it was before, maybe there could be different heat curve. Again, it's not a system with solid numbers just yet.

So they do less heat when they are chainfired, why is that equal to forcing them to chain fire? Stop mistaking Incentivised from being Forced.

Help me understand, you seem to be insinuating that the incentivized Chainfire means group firing or at least alpha builds is now not viable. I don't get that.

Suppose that we have the usual 4x ERML + 2x HLL Hellbringer, doing total of 64 damage, for 57.2 heat, and assuming 71 heat capacity, it results a spike of heat to 80.56% of heat.

If the mechs are outputting the same 57.2 heat, 80.56% heat-gauge, and 64 damage. Why would it, having even lesser heat when partitioned together means the alpha build is no longer viable? it's still working now.

But okay, I admit, current heat-gain would mean to do the same alpha means unbelievably high heat. Though really, it's not like there could still be adjusted heat curve that still provides diminishing heat-efficiency while still allowing the already effective builds. So, suppose that the Laser Vomit alpha total heat remains the same in this system, but it only reduces heat when being partitioned, how would the Laser Vomit be not viable when it was working before?

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 31 July 2018 - 04:14 PM, said:

Forcing a dakka mech to chain fire doesn't really phase it much especially when you are removing 40-50 instant damage pokes. At that point chainfiring a bunch of instant damage weapons seems silly because the differences between instant damage boats and dakka boats is much less, the line becomes blurred to the point that it simply becomes bad to bother with those instant damage weapons instead of dakka.

You can shoot all at once if you wanted to. Why are you even concerned with it? if it's not doing that much DPS (the lasers) as actual DPS weapons, then obviously it's meant to be played by alpha by peek poking. Why are you shoehorning those with the role they aren't designed to do? Again, Incentivized isn't the same as Forced. You don't have to be too heat efficient.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 31 July 2018 - 04:14 PM, said:

This is why chainfiring and anything related to it HAS NEVER been a counter balance to boating, all it does it shift the balance towards once specific type of boat.

Kinda nonsequitur.

So builds fall on a spectrum, and if group-firing becomes a bother, then there won't be any group firing. So chainfiring weapons that aren't meant to be chainfired aren't as effective as weapons that are actually for facetiming? Well, kinda really the point now isn't it?

You know, i'm still waiting for the answer why chainfiring weapons that aren't meant to be chainfired is completely better than groupfiring them.

What I am seeing is that you have this imagined notion of somehow that group firing becomes completely terrible and nonviable, just because chainfiring would yield better heat efficiency. No, it depends on the execution.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 31 July 2018 - 04:14 PM, said:

Because they aren't as simple to use and they are more fun to play? Do you really need more than that?

Fun is subjective. Simplicity isn't necessary.

Yes, i need more than that. You aren't the entire playerbase.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 31 July 2018 - 04:14 PM, said:

Gauss/PPC isn't as simple to use as just quad PPC. Gauss/lasers isn't as simple to use as just pure laser vomit. Both are more fun to play than their "pure" boat forms.

Then play them as you want. This really sounds more like preferences issues than actual balance concerns.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 31 July 2018 - 04:14 PM, said:

It should be because that is one of the main reasons for single weapon boating.

But that's really more of a question of synergy than anything. Again, if they don't want to deal with desynced weapons, that is people's choice.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 31 July 2018 - 04:14 PM, said:

The only difference between power draw and energy draw is that instead of accuracy being negatively impacted, heat was. Similar setup, punish weapons firing past a certain threshold and removing loopholes of ghost heat.

But the execution is the problem, not the concept. Again, this is just another concept, there's no solid stats yet, we have no way of testing. Your comparison with ED is BS because of that.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 31 July 2018 - 04:14 PM, said:

I never said that, what I said is a single system will never make that achievable, not even the idea I suggested above.

Then why would curbing specialist design for competitive bracket builds is a concern?

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 31 July 2018 - 04:14 PM, said:

It will take arbitrary balance adjustments to make that happen, and a significantly more restricted mechlab to avoid exploitation of any of the arbitrary balance adjustments.

Experimentation is part of MechLab. Having them more restricted any more than the construction rules is a disservice to the system. That is not to say dumb builds should have good results.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 31 July 2018 - 04:14 PM, said:

The reason is because generalist designs have to be pretty competent at whatever roles they are trying to achieve compared to specialists to be worth taking. To do that requires significant buffs and restrictions to avoid exploitation of those buffs for specialist roles.

Or you know, just add diminishing returns for specialized roles. Achieves the same thing, and that is what the system is trying to achieve.

Lets put this this way, instead of 6 + 6 + 6 + 6, it's 8 + 6 + 4 + 2. The more you add firsts of the pile, the more you will get.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 31 July 2018 - 10:14 PM.

[LordNothing]

Khobai, on 31 July 2018 - 02:23 PM, said:

You know what? Bracket builds suck in tabletop battletech too. Look at the Atlas its one of the worst assaults in tabletop because of its bracket build nature. Other assaults like the Awesome absolutely crush the Atlas because all their weapons can fire at the same range.

And you know what the best stock mech for competitive battletech was? The sagitarrius. Why? because of pulse laser vomit.

Bracket builds should not be forced on players. They are bad. And it feels bad playing them.



doesnt fix gauss vomit.

in fact it just forces clan players to gauss vomit since laser vomit would be dead.

I still think the only fix we need for now is CERML to 6 damage, CHLL to 16-17 damage, and CGauss to 12 damage but with a faster rate of fire and increased range (so its like a hybrid light/regular gauss).

That sufficiently lowers the max alphas to about the same as what IS is capable of.

does gauss vomit really need to be fixed though? thats essentially a mixed build with all the disadvantages of same. with charging and maybe recoil on top of it. high skill should equal high reward. then you consider that all the 'solutions' to the gauss problem have either been easy to circumvent or would break so many other weapons in the process (that was the problem with energy draw).

ghost charge might be the way to go. more gausses simply require more charge time. bring back single and light gauss builds by taking away much of the charge time. but use multiples and the times stack with a penalty multiplier. a large number of gauss rifles might get a couple seconds of charge time. chain them and that goes away but up goes the face time. and you can keep that from going out of hand to stick a cd on the recharge so you have to space them out. and tradeoffs like this bring fun back to the game.

[Khobai]

LordNothing, on 31 July 2018 - 07:59 PM, said:

does gauss vomit really need to be fixed though?

of course. clan gauss is 12 tons. it needs to be weaker than IS gauss.

the best way to do that is make it do 12 damage and give it a faster rate of fire.

and get rid of the dumb recoil that does nothing to balance it.

[The6thMessenger]

Khobai, on 31 July 2018 - 09:00 PM, said:

of course. clan gauss is 12 tons. it needs to be weaker than IS gauss.

the best way to do that is make it do 12 damage and give it a faster rate of fire.

IS also has Gauss Vomit.

We've been over this, no it's not.

Clan only have one Gauss Rifle in game. Their gauss needs to be balanced with respect to the rest of the techbase, not 1:1 with the IS weapon, quite simply it has a niche to fulfill in the clans, just as the iGR has to fullfill it's niche to IS. Touch the PPFLD, and you just devalued it's sniping niche.

LGR needs damage buff, the CGR doesn't need to be reduced to it's level. Give it slower projectile speed like 1650, give it 2 heat, have 1.0s charge time + 6.00s cooldown.

Clan Gauss is not OP on it's own, but Laser Vomit and Gauss Vomit is powerful -- this is because Gauss isn't the problem, the lasers is. So the proper way to nerf Gauss Vomit, is to nerf the laser component.

[Athom83]

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.

Incentivizing something =/= disincentivizeing the other option. The problem here is you're disincentivinzing firing an alpha and claiming that it incentivizes chainfire. Meanwhile, you massively nerf things that have to alpha because they can't carry the weapons to chainfire (mainly light mechs and heavier mechs with very few hardpoints).

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.

There are other ways of addressing this, like adding recoil/shake to kinetic weapons (ACs, PPCs, and Missiles) and changing they way convergence works (made a topic on this in the suggestions looooooong ago).


Edit; On the original suggestion. Instead of making it so firing more weapons increase the heat each weapon makes, how about instead they decrease the heat dissipation efficiency for a short time after firing. Hotter weapons decrease the efficiency more while cooler weapons don't effect it as much. And each weapon adds its own negative to that, so if you fire enough really hot weapons, your heat will freeze at its peak for like a second or two before it starts cooling off.

Edited by Athom83, 01 August 2018 - 09:05 AM.

[Athom83]

The6thMessenger, on 31 July 2018 - 09:18 PM, said:

LGR needs damage buff

Nah,just make it so LG doesn't need the chargeup then it can keep its current damage.