Chris Lowrey, on 06 September 2018 - 04:36 PM, said:
I want to start out with a big thank you for all who have participated and provided feedback over the various testing sessions.
Well, You're Welcome. I was actually kind of glad to get a chance to fight without a MatchMaker stomping me before matches began. Plus seeing weapons behave differently gives one a fresh outlook on a game's designs...
However, after reading your roadmap, I am left to ask a giant question. That happens to be...
Why aren't we getting a PTS 3.0 to help verify if this is really the right way to go?
...because after looking at the changes myself, it honestly does NOTHING to actually stop the 90+ Damage Gauss & Laser Alpha that people could be potentially upset about. You're barely knocking 7 points off it, while taking the sting out of the weapons when posed against the Inner Sphere's Mechs. Worse, it looks like you're trying to push some weapons into total disuse, as there's a breaking point when a Weapon's Heat exceeds 90% of the Damage, at which point people won't use the weapon anymore. Nobody wants to be penalized just for firing a single weapon, but that's what happens when a Heat Generation heavily exceeds the Damage Dealt.
Further, PTS 1.0 & 1.1 were grossly & severely hated by the Community in general, directly because it made the Inner Sphere into "Easy Mode", and the Clans into the equivalent of WORTHLESS PAPER. As it stands, they've taken too many nerfs to their Component & Equipment Health levels, and your current idea for changes does NOTHING to fix that. Like, why didn't you Buff the Health of Clan DHS and other things during those PTS 1.0 & 1.1 runs, anyway? When people take Inner Sphere Contracts for Faction Warfare, they want the Clan Mechs that they face to actually still be a challenge against them even when they're blowing it and mess up. The same even goes when they pick an Inner Sphere Mech and fight a Clan Mech in Quick Play!
Next, PTS 2.0 was only partially liked by the Community because it made builds involving PPCs & MRMs (
as well as various forms of Large Lasers) not really that usable. It was starting to go in the right direction, but it missed a few things regarding Ghost Heat that should have been checked in tandem. Perhaps even Heat Gen Buffs could have been pushed to PPCs and MRMs for that matter. I suspect if they had been, then it might have been a near-ace for stopping the problematic Gauss & Laser Alpha combo, all while leaving most any playstyle functional.
PTS 2.1 however was where you basically hit the mark properly. A flat Heat Limit, Good Heat Dissipation, and every weapon seemed to work properly. It could even shut down launching those troublesome Gauss & Laser Alpha combos without penalizing most every other playstyle out there. Firing something too big should indeed shut the Mech down, just like it used to back in games like MechWarrior 2&3 did.
So then I sat back, thinking... I asked myself, "How can I help
Chris Lowrey balance MWO, but keep things like the '18 Damage C-HLL' and other things unaffected in terms of their Baseline Heat & Damage? Further, how can I help him make using DHS not still too mandatory? Even further, how can I help Balance this so that it
never leaves things easy for the 'Elite-Type, Competitive-Class Players' up top against anyone of lesser skills?", and the following things then just dawned on me. What do you think of the following numbers...
- Base Heat Bar increased to 45 (from 30)(I think this part works too, as you're bumping Capacity down below.)
- ALL HeatSinks (Single & Double)
Removed settings related to differences between Engine and External Heatsinks.(Again, I think this part works, as you're bumping Capacity & Dissipation down below.)
- Heatsinks (This part changed slightly... It just didn't seem right to me.)
Dissipation Increased to 0.15 (from 0.13)
Heat Capacity reduced to 0.825 (from 1.3)
- Inner Sphere Double Heatsinks (This part not changed from how you intend... I think it works.)
Dissipation Increased to 0.22 (from 0.15)
Heat Capacity reduced to 0.5 (from 1.5)
- Clan Double Heatsinks (This part changed slightly... It just didn't seem right to me.)
Dissipation Increased to 0.20 (from 0.15)
Heat Capacity reduced to 0.5 (from 1.5)
- Quirks (This part also not changed from how you intend... I think it works.)
Corrective Heat Dissipation quirks on sub 250 engine 'Mechs will be generally phased out.
Some quirks may remain depending on if we wish to keep a small amount of dissipation as a specific flavor or Omnipod perk.
...for Heat Management? To me, laying it out with those appears to make things "Balanced But Different" in the Grand Scheme of MWO's Game Design. Now onward beyond this, I then looked at Damage/'Heat Generation', as well as the Ghost Heat Penalties for the various Weapons. How does this set of numbers...
- I.S. ER Large Laser
Heat remains at 8
Ghost Heat Penalty of ALL I.S. Large Lasers becomes linked with ALL I.S. Medium Lasers
I.S. ER Large Lasers may now fire 4 before Ghost Heat, Penalty will occur when firing 5 or more.
- I.S. Large Pulse Laser
Ghost Heat Penalty of ALL I.S. Large Lasers becomes linked with ALL I.S. Medium Lasers
I.S. Large Pulse Lasers may now fire 4 before Ghost Heat, Penalty will occur when firing 5 or more.
- I.S. Standard Large Laser
Ghost Heat Penalty of ALL I.S. Large Lasers becomes linked with ALL I.S. Medium Lasers
I.S. Standard Large Lasers may now fire 4 before Ghost Heat, Penalty will occur when firing 5 or more.
- Clan ER Large Laser
Damage remains at 11
Heat decreased to 10.5 (from 10.8)
Ghost Heat Penalty of ALL Clan Large Lasers becomes linked with ALL Clan Medium & Small Lasers
Clan ER Large Lasers may now fire 3 before Ghost Heat, Penalty will occur when firing 4 or more.
- Clan ER Medium Laser
Damage remains at 7
Ghost Heat Penalty of ALL Clan Large Lasers becomes linked with ALL Clan Medium & Small Lasers
- Clan Medium Pulse Laser
Damage remains at 7 (possible outlook of Buff to 7.5 or 8, depending on performance in these circumstances)
Heat remains at 4.75 (possible outlook of Nerf to 4.9 or 5.1, depending on IF Damage gets Buff)
Ghost Heat Penalty of ALL Clan Large Lasers becomes linked with ALL Clan Medium & Small Lasers
- Clan Heavy Large Laser
Damage remains at 18 (possible outlook of Buff to 19 or 20, depending on performance in these circumstances)
Ghost Heat Penalty of ALL Clan Large Lasers becomes linked with ALL Clan Medium & Small Lasers
Clan Heavy Large Lasers may still only fire 2 before Ghost Heat, Penalty will occur when firing 3 or more.
- Clan Large Pulse Laser
Ghost Heat Penalty of ALL Clan Large Lasers becomes linked with ALL Clan Medium & Small Lasers
Clan Large Pulse Lasers may now fire 3 before Ghost Heat, Penalty will occur when firing 4 or more.
...look to you in terms of Damage, Heat Generation, and Ghost Heat Penalty? Here, I tried to factor in PTS 1.0 & 1.1, directly because of the idea introduced to my mind about Ghost Heat Penalty adjustments. In the idea that these changes which I propose present in terms of situations, I've also factored in the troublesome Gauss & Laser Alpha combos that everyone's been talking about, and have been overdue to be stopped, but fully
without leaving Pure Laser builds in some kind of unusable state. This will still allow mixing of Gauss & Lasers, but only to a more limited extent that blocks the largest bursts unless the Pilot wants to sit for a few eating a Penalty. Yes, people will have to learn better firing discipline in not mixing Large Lasers with Mediums (
and in the case of Clans, Small Lasers), but at least this puts a stopper on most of the "single-Alpha, insta-delete backshots" and such that nobody likes. Further in turn, I've also taken a page out of the I.S. Ghost Heat Booklet about tuning the Clan Side to still maintain "Balanced But Different", yet without taking away the Clan Weapon Sting that should be felt when someone using an Inner Sphere Mech makes a big error. I further think & feel that these numbers all avoid the push into a situation where I.S. Mechs would have to lose their Durability Quirks and such, items which happen to give the I.S. their own flavor that I feel should still be there. This even leaves room for Medium Mechs on both sides to come into their own alongside ALL of the Other Weight Classes, as well as not leave the slower Light Mechs in an underpowered state, which makes an excellent plus for
not Nerfing the Baseline Damage on all those individual Weapons via the batch set you originally Roadmap as.
Now, with all of this said, I also have to ask you why the "X-Pulse Lasers" were not introduced into the Inner Sphere Weapons Arsenal? They might have been able to pre-settle a lot of this mess before it even began. Further, in terms of Last Questions, why wasn't the Armor/Structure of ALL Mechs simply bumped up to around 2.5x to 3x what TableTop uses? It would have perfectly increased TTK to a reasonable extent without leaving matches to take all day long, allowed Mech Pilots to learn from their mistakes within a single match, and potentially promoted more Lance-based Operations versus the severe 'DeathBall'ing that we see now. Quite honestly, I would like to hear your thoughts on everything I've posted above in terms of a possible edit to your Roadmap, as well as these varied additional matters. I want to see MWO become totally fun again too, so please reply back and give me (
and obviously everyone else here too) some return insight?
~Mr. D. V. "
Finally getting a chance to ring in after 4 PTS Runs & 12.5 Pages of Discussion here..." Devnull
(
p.s.: In case you're wondering, this post took me multiple hours to actually type. On top of that, it took quite some time to read through the whole thread, and about 10 to 14 days to reach enough mental thought to start typing. About 20 passes up and down the post later, here it is for your reading. So I'm really looking forward to understanding your thoughts, both from the Roadmap itself as well as how my proposal works in terms of any useful tweaks it might provide for your use!)
[
One heck of an Additional Edit by Post Author for some formatting that totally nuked itself... UGH!]
[
Also an Edit about 18 Hours Later by Post Author for a clarification they missed in the whole idea stack...and the ensuing formatting hell that got fixed again... Sorry about that!!!]
Edited by D V Devnull, 30 September 2018 - 12:24 AM.
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