4 replies to this topic

[Sereglach]

First off, after my first few matches, I think the heat change feels incredible and this has actually been fun to play. It should be great with the right tuning!

If it works as well as I think it should, Ghost heat might not be needed or at the very least heavily toned down in most cases. Preventing 2xAC20 or 2xHGR from firing with a bunch of other weapons, for example, fall within fringe cases that still need to be heavily addressed.

As far as heat cap goes, a 35 heat cap still allows just about any build to bracket fire consistently; and most non-Ghost Heat alphas will shut you down, be risky/punishable with poor timing, but not be instant death. By the time you add in skill tree nodes you end up with an operational heat cap closer to 40-45, instead of closer to 50-55. After all, it's not hard to get an extra 10% heat dissipation and close to 10% less weapon heat on any mech build focusing on firepower.

On the other hand, leaving the cap alone and doing some asymmetrical heat sink values (suggested elsewhere in various measures) could also resolve the tuning, as well. This would be a prime opportunity to give SHS marginal heat cap as a means of making them unique. Giving them .15 dissipation and .5 heat capacity per heatsink would make them extremely unique and possibly viable for a variety of builds. Also, giving the IS a slightly increased DHS dissipation for their increased volume (and overall less available tonnage in builds) could balance out the build discrepancies between factions. Food for thought.

Regardless, the thing I love most about this is it doesn't eliminate high Alpha builds, like some people are claiming . . . it just means they need to bracket fire and only Alpha in extreme situations. To me this is 100% ideal. Some might not like it, but I love it. Please keep it and continue to push in this direction.

Second, I think the lower heat cap is going to require some more heat adjustments to LAMS in a downward direction. The lower heat cap (even with increased dissipation) means just a few seconds of LAMS fire can eat into your heat cap absurdly fast. I don't know exactly how much it'd need to be decreased to make them manageable, but I'd say in the area of at least 50-60% (2.85 HPS down to 1.14 - 1.4 HPS). If you were to put them on a 3 AMS Uller you'd probably overheat before you could react enough to shut the AMS off, if you were trying to combat several missile boats. While Chris has talked about the issues in trying to balance TT vs. RTS, it's worth noting that the LAMS of TT generates up to 7 heat/round for the IS version over 10 seconds, which would be .7 HPS . . . so the MWO LAMS is already WAY above that value . . . even more so when you consider that facing an LRM/5 spammer or multiple LRM boats means your LAMS is going to be working overtime.

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Lastly, and most importantly to me, while I think the heat changes are excellent, I think this necessitates that discussion about Flamers sooner rather than later. While likely an unforseen consequence of PGI, the new heat system opens the door to Flamergeddon 2.0 if the weapon system is not properly addressed.

Flamers have about 4.25 seconds free fire window with pseudo cooldowns, and at 4.5 heat/second basically allows near-instant crippling of mechs. After all, 90% of 40 heat is 36 heat . . . that leaves a whopping 4 points of heat to work with. That cripples energy builds and even prevents most ballistic builds from firing.

Now, while they might cool that off quicker, a mech with 4 Flamers (not triggering ghost heat) can inflict that 90% heat threshold in a mere 2 seconds (4.5 heat/second X 4 flamers = 18 heat/second). 10 DHS (2 heat/s dissipation), needs 18 seconds to cool that all off and even 20 DHS (4 heat/s dissipation) needs 9 seconds to cool it off. However, the Flamers only fired 2 seconds; and with a 4.25 second pseudo-cooldown that means the Flamers can fire again in 6.25 seconds with zero heat . . . long before the opponent has cooled down. Even if the victim mech has heat dissipation nodes AND heat capacity nodes, they're still not cooling down enough to be truly effective, even if the Flamer wielder fires for an extra second or so just to make sure he did enough heat damage.

This means that even with the Flamer's pseudo-cooldown they can stunlock people again without even invoking ghost heat penalties. Also, nudges on the baseline heat of the Flamer will be touchy under its current implementation, as the acceleration mechanics can take that Heat DPS from extremes to nothing very quickly . . . as we've seen in the past with the few rounds of Flamer tuning we've had. The same goes for heat generated by the user, because while target heat resets its acceleration values when weapon contact is lost, shooter heat acceleration is constant and only decreases under the pseudo-cooldown mechanics.

I have, in fact, tested this on the PTS and while I only did 131 damage (2xLL 4xFlamer Sparky), my lance steamrolled the enemy lance because they couldn't fire hardly any weapons. In fact I think the 2xHGR Fafnir was the one who blew himself up . . . firing 2x heavy gauss and 3xML . . . because I put him at such heat he couldn't fire otherwise and my team was pounding the daylights out of him. This was just the first example. While just the first match with Flamers (it's been extremely difficult to get matches), the effects were swift and extreme with little effort on my part.

Simple solution: Drop the exponential mechanics and go to a reliable constant DPS + HDPS that fits in this new -and seriously improved- world of lower heat caps and higher dissipation. Physical DPS will be important to add because extreme sacrifices will need to be made in the Heat DPS department in order to keep them in check (ironically, something I've always advocated for, anyway).

~1.0 DPS provides comparable DPS to MGs . . . a comparable weapon even in lore. It's also not game-breaking in any way.

0.75 - 1.0 HPS provides controllable heat for the shooter, and manageable heat in larger quantities. Surpassing 2 Flamers the value is still low enough to be manageable but high enough to inflict significant heat damage. However, values should be a comparable 75% (2/3rds) of whatever the heat damage is, as an opinion of rough concept. This alllows the weapon to be fired quite heavily, but at consequence to both shooter and target. It also prevents any stunlocking with "free fire" periods or unlimited shooting. If the shooter is heat neutral while firing flamers than the target will likely be suffering minimal consequence, as well.

1.0 - 1.34 HDPS provides controllable heat damage under the new system. 1 Flamer will do little more than mitigate some enemy cooling (as it does in lore). However, large arrays of Flamers will do notable heat damage . . . but will be more difficult for the shooter to manage with proportionally increased heat buildup. Also, the lack of "free fire windows" and "pseudo-cooldowns" means the opponent has ample time to cool off and be combat effective, because the shooter must cool off, as well.

Granted, numbers are just put up there as a personal baseline or ballpark figure, but this puts the Flamer in a place where it's viable under all conditions and it doesn't allow stunlocking. It also becomes a weapon with an easy entry point of use but with a high maximum skill threshold. In addition, it quickly fixes the problem Flamers currently present under the tested heat systems.

Overall, I think this new heat system is wonderful; and I don't want to see it broken or rejected because -as currently implemented- my favorite weapon in the game can break it. In addition, I don't want to see my favorite weapon in the game just handed another needless nerf (like Solaris) or removed from viability in order to ensure the success of this new heat system. I'd much rather have the best of both.

I'll try to get more testing in over the weekend and post updates if I feel there are any differences in my opinions.

[Tesunie]

Seems like fair and reasonable feedback to me.

I'm happy to see I'm not the only one who really liked the new heat scale changes. Didn't consider Flamer's effects on it though, so thanks for testing that. (Or... maybe no thanks for testing that? Depends on if you flamer me in a PTS match or not. )

[Hiten Bongz]

LAMS and Flamers would definitely need some adjustment with the PTS heat values, that's for sure.

[Sereglach]

Tesunie, on 17 August 2018 - 09:26 PM, said:

Seems like fair and reasonable feedback to me.

I'm happy to see I'm not the only one who really liked the new heat scale changes. Didn't consider Flamer's effects on it though, so thanks for testing that. (Or... maybe no thanks for testing that? Depends on if you flamer me in a PTS match or not. )

Thank you, kindly. I do love the changes made; and I hope PGI sticks with the premise.

That said, I was the proverbial "chicken little" claiming that the sky was falling before the first Flamergeddon, and I was not happy to give PGI a big fat "I told you so!" when the patch hit. I don't want these great changes to the heat system to be the bringer of Flamergeddon 2.0, if PGI fails to address this issue, because that'll put a bad taint in an otherwise excellent balancing direction for MWO. The Flamer already suffered enough the first time it happened . . . I don't want to see the Flamer suffer another series of panic induced nerfs or over-complicated mechanical layers if it happens again.

Hiten Bongz, on 17 August 2018 - 09:57 PM, said:

LAMS and Flamers would definitely need some adjustment with the PTS heat values, that's for sure.

Yeah, I think it's a bit of an unintended consequence on PGI's part, which is why I'm bringing it up as fast as I can. It absolutely needs to be addressed.

[Sereglach]

I'm just going to put my 2.1 feedback in this thread, as there isn't much change from the 2.0 feedback.

Most builds have a bit more endurance, and there's a bit more alpha potential. Personally, I think 45 heat capacity might be the sweet spot by the time you figure in quirks and skill tree. The IS may or may not need slight to modest heat adjustments to some of their energy weapons to be a little more competitive with the Clan's inherent ability to pack on more DHS. An alternate option is giving IS DHS a slight cooling buff over clans due to the larger volume and typically less available tonnage. Other than that I think things are in a reasonably solid spot. Outside of that LAMS also still runs far too hot to be manageable under the new system/values; and it needs its heat generation cut in at least half. Just like the first PTS, however, this one has been quite fun to play.

Possibly, just to address the HGR issue (instant 50 PPFLD with very little heat at short range), consider making it so that only 1 HGR can fire at a time, not unlike what you already do with normal Gauss Rifles and PPCs. However, with all of the other changes it may or may not be a lingering issue in the long run. Time will tell.

However, Flamers still very much need their reengineering. Approximately 2.5 seconds of firing 4 Flamers every 6.75 seconds inflicts 90% heat capacity (~45 heat) and stunlocks all but the coolest running mechs. The only time one Banshee 3M managed to get a shot off to kill me they obviously just blew a cool shot immediately after I maxed out their heat. While this was a great play on their part, using a coolshot shouldn't be the only way possible to escape what will become Flamergeddon 2.0 if not addressed. Regardless, outside of that one instance, I had half a dozen matches where I was able to handily stunlock enemy mechs with no issue; and as long as I stayed mobile and my teammates were engaging the rest of the enemy, my victims were easy pickings for my team. There are also a LOT of mechs that can easily pull off 4 Flamers plus have other weapons to fire.

Fixed flat values become manageable, easily tunable, and prevent any of the issues we currently have on live or the PTS 2.x runs. Please do not let this PTS go live with Flamers the way they are. I do not want what has been absolutely incredible PTS runs to be marred with Flamergeddon 2.0 on release. I also do not want the heavy-handed and weapon debilitating nerfs that were done to "balance" the weapon after the first Flamergeddon to happen all over again. Again, please see what I wrote in the OP regarding where Flamers sit, because nothing has really changed between the two PTS runs.