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Curbing High Alphas?

Balance

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#21 Luminis

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Posted 17 October 2018 - 08:43 AM

Let me just add that I don't mind lower TTK in general. In my opinion, it punishes a lack of awareness and bad positioning, thus promoting better play. I also generally like the idea of increased dissipation and the resulting shift from alpha damage to DPS.

What concerns me is that having a Mech "archetype" that has alpha damage, DPS and a generous range profile. That archetype hinging on the ability to boat DHS, which one side is significantly better at than the other, is concerning as well (especially when PGI immediately started nerfing IS quirks without testing the impact the changes have on faction balance).

Call me a pessimist, but if my impression is correct, we'll be back to Clan Laser Vomit >>> all soon.

#22 Sable

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Posted 17 October 2018 - 08:51 AM

From the patch notes i got the impression the heat scale started at 20 and increased 0.5 per double heat sink. which at 20 double heat sinks would put you at 30. So my initial impression was that the max heatcap with skill tree bonuses would end up around 37. To my surprise the heatcap seems much more generous and tops out around 80-90 total heat on a clan mech with about 24-25 heatsinks. It just feels counter intuitive to what they were trying to accomplish in PTS 2 and 2.1. I am having a blast since the patch i just get the feeling something is being calculated wrong to the benefit to the player.

It is really nice being more heat efficient than before. I've found that i can strip off several heatsinks from a lot of my builds. add in additional equipment and still feel more comfortable heat wise than i was before.

#23 Gloris

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Posted 17 October 2018 - 08:53 AM

View PostLuminis, on 17 October 2018 - 08:43 AM, said:

Call me a pessimist, but if my impression is correct, we'll be back to Clan Laser Vomit >>> all soon.


I have this impression as well, My Laser Hunchback IIC my laser Madcat, my Laser Stormcrow, my laser Nova, they all feel pretty powerfull at the moment.

And yes my IS Laser builds also got better, but by a smaller margin. at least it feels like that.

#24 Vxheous

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Posted 17 October 2018 - 08:58 AM

View PostSable, on 17 October 2018 - 08:51 AM, said:

From the patch notes i got the impression the heat scale started at 20 and increased 0.5 per double heat sink. which at 20 double heat sinks would put you at 30. So my initial impression was that the max heatcap with skill tree bonuses would end up around 37. To my surprise the heatcap seems much more generous and tops out around 80-90 total heat on a clan mech with about 24-25 heatsinks. It just feels counter intuitive to what they were trying to accomplish in PTS 2 and 2.1. I am having a blast since the patch i just get the feeling something is being calculated wrong to the benefit to the player.

It is really nice being more heat efficient than before. I've found that i can strip off several heatsinks from a lot of my builds. add in additional equipment and still feel more comfortable heat wise than i was before.


Umm, your math is wrong. It's 30 base heat cap + 20 (from 1st ten heatsinks, engine or otherwise). Basically every mech now has 50 base heat cap (pretty much unchanged from previous mechs that use double heat sinks). Any further double heatsinks only add 0.5 heat cap per heatsink. So typical Clan laser mech with 25 double heatsinks has a heat cap of 30 + (2x10 heatsinks) + (0.5x15) = 57.5 heatcap. There is no 80-90 total heatcap going on.

#25 process

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Posted 17 October 2018 - 09:42 AM

View PostShanrak, on 17 October 2018 - 08:28 AM, said:


ERPPC warhawk for one. Impossible to do a 2 by 2 shot anymore with heat cap at 40.


Why does that specific build have to function that way? Similarly, should we design the entire heat system to allow Novas to fire 6 by 6 erML in quick succession?

#26 process

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Posted 17 October 2018 - 09:46 AM

View PostLuminis, on 17 October 2018 - 08:43 AM, said:

Call me a pessimist, but if my impression is correct, we'll be back to Clan Laser Vomit >>> all soon.


There are other weapon systems that are far more efficient in terms of DPS, but as long as the heat capacity allows for it, laser vomit will continue to provide the most consistent way to deliver high pinpoint damage from a safe distance. High dissipation means it can happen more frequently.

#27 MechaBattler

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Posted 17 October 2018 - 09:52 AM

I was hoping that people were overstating things. But it's practically the same heat cap with more dissipation. Maybe implementing only half of the original idea is not a good way to fix balance?

#28 Sable

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Posted 17 October 2018 - 10:27 AM

View PostVxheous, on 17 October 2018 - 08:58 AM, said:

Umm, your math is wrong. It's 30 base heat cap + 20 (from 1st ten heatsinks, engine or otherwise). Basically every mech now has 50 base heat cap (pretty much unchanged from previous mechs that use double heat sinks). Any further double heatsinks only add 0.5 heat cap per heatsink. So typical Clan laser mech with 25 double heatsinks has a heat cap of 30 + (2x10 heatsinks) + (0.5x15) = 57.5 heatcap. There is no 80-90 total heatcap going on.

Ahh i see where i got confused. When reading about how the 10 engine heatsinks are calculated it says "The first 10 Heatsinks equipped on a 'Mech will always provide a flat 20 total points of Heat Threshold (2 per heatsink) regardless of whether they are internally mounted in the engine, or must be externally equipped in crit slots on a 'Mech."

But further down in the design notes is where it states "We have decided to keep the base 30 heat and instead change the base 10 heatsink behavior to provide a flat 20 value regardless of source. This will still produce the total base 50 heat threshold that was observed during testing regardless of how heatsinks are assigned"

So base heatcap = 50
0.5 per heatsink, 20 double heat sinks = 10
Operations max skill nodes = +15% heatcap
Firepower skill tree for clan = -8.4%

50 + 10 = 60
15% of 60 = 9 which puts it at 69

While firepower heat nodes do not technically increase your heatcap in a theory crafting sense its feels like it's higher so here's more numbers!! Being able to fire with 8.4% less heat from all weapons would put you theoretically at a 74.796 heat cap for alpha strike potential. And thats just with 20 double heatsinks. A Warhawk with 27-28 double heatsinks would push that to roughly 80.

Edited by Sable, 17 October 2018 - 10:29 AM.


#29 Khobai

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Posted 17 October 2018 - 10:59 AM

View PostLuminis, on 17 October 2018 - 08:43 AM, said:

Call me a pessimist, but if my impression is correct, we'll be back to Clan Laser Vomit >>> all soon.


I dunno. the CHLL is flaming garbage now. 16 damage with the same heat and beam duration as when it was 18 damage. Theres no reason to use it now IMO.

#30 Jman5

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Posted 17 October 2018 - 11:41 AM

The end result is that all builds are now running cooler. I wouldn't be surprised if Alphastrikes and DPS go up as people realize you can just swap heatsinks for more guns and still run cooler than you were before.

Edited by Jman5, 17 October 2018 - 11:42 AM.


#31 Kubernetes

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Posted 17 October 2018 - 12:30 PM

View PostFelbombling, on 17 October 2018 - 05:40 AM, said:

I balance Mech builds by running a circuit on Crimson Strait. I set my Mechs up so that they can kill off seven Mechs with the aid of one cool-shot and one arty strike in or around three minutes, with ammo to spare. It works out pretty well as a balancing aid, allowing me to shave ammo and/or heat sinks in an effort to fine-tune a Mech build, and the end result is that, during actual live combat, I rarely run out of ammo or find myself in chained shut-down situations when pressed.

At any rate, after the patch, similar test runs have found that Mechs die slightly faster and that the cool-shots are needless. The times posted are basically tied directly to the ground speed of a Mech [Assaults are slooooow], so I might just keep the load-outs as is and enjoy the added efficiency on hot maps, or possibly dump a few heat-sinks for added armour or an extra laser where possible.

My guess is that TTK will be shorter, which isn't exactly the move I was expecting PGI to go with. I think Russ has stated publicly that TTK was too short, so this is rather kooky.


You and I do almost the same routine in training grounds. Crimson ftw!


Not only has TTK gone down, but general game tempo has gone up noticeably. People are just shooting a lot more because heat is less of an issue. I had a bunch of games last night that finished ridiculously quickly. The games were done about two minutes after first contact.

#32 Vxheous

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Posted 17 October 2018 - 02:14 PM

View PostSable, on 17 October 2018 - 10:27 AM, said:

Ahh i see where i got confused. When reading about how the 10 engine heatsinks are calculated it says "The first 10 Heatsinks equipped on a 'Mech will always provide a flat 20 total points of Heat Threshold (2 per heatsink) regardless of whether they are internally mounted in the engine, or must be externally equipped in crit slots on a 'Mech."

But further down in the design notes is where it states "We have decided to keep the base 30 heat and instead change the base 10 heatsink behavior to provide a flat 20 value regardless of source. This will still produce the total base 50 heat threshold that was observed during testing regardless of how heatsinks are assigned"

So base heatcap = 50
0.5 per heatsink, 20 double heat sinks = 10
Operations max skill nodes = +15% heatcap
Firepower skill tree for clan = -8.4%

50 + 10 = 60
15% of 60 = 9 which puts it at 69

While firepower heat nodes do not technically increase your heatcap in a theory crafting sense its feels like it's higher so here's more numbers!! Being able to fire with 8.4% less heat from all weapons would put you theoretically at a 74.796 heat cap for alpha strike potential. And thats just with 20 double heatsinks. A Warhawk with 27-28 double heatsinks would push that to roughly 80.


Your numbers are still wrong. You're counting 20 double heatsinks twice. If a mech has 20 double heatsinks, the first 10 of them count as the 2x10 that gets added to 30 base heat cap to make the 50. You are left with 10 double heatsinks with additional cap of 0.5 per heatsink. A mech with 20 double heatsinks has a flat heatcap of 55 prior to any manipulation of skill tree. A mech with 30 double heatsinks (certain clan laser vom assaults) have a flat heatcap of 60 prior to skill tree.

Without going into -heat gen of weapons, we will look strictly at heat cap pre patch and post patch:

Clan mech with 20 double heatsinks:
Pre patch math: ( 30 base + (2x10 internal engine) + (10x1.5) ) x (1.15 heat containment) = 74.75
Post patch math: ( 30 base + (2x1st 10 doubles) + (remaining 10 doubles x 0.5) ) x (1.15 heat containment) = 63.25

Clan mech with 30 double heatsinks:
Pre patch math: ( 30 base + (2x10 internal engine) + (20x1.5) ) x (1.15 heat containment) = 82.23
Post patch math: ( 30 base + (2x1st 10 doubles) + (remaining 20 doubles x 0.5) ) x (1.15 heat containment) = 69

Remember that heat gen on weapons is still exactly the same, apart from the fact that most of the popular clan lasers gained a slight heat increase per laser post patch.

#33 Kubernetes

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Posted 17 October 2018 - 03:42 PM

View PostKhobai, on 17 October 2018 - 10:59 AM, said:


I dunno. the CHLL is flaming garbage now. 16 damage with the same heat and beam duration as when it was 18 damage. Theres no reason to use it now IMO.


CLPL is back, baby!

#34 Vxheous

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Posted 17 October 2018 - 04:09 PM

View PostKubernetes, on 17 October 2018 - 03:42 PM, said:


CLPL is back, baby!


I think I would rather have 2 ERLL and +4 heatsinks over 2 CLPL (assuming theres crit slots to fit those 4 heatsinks)

#35 FupDup

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Posted 17 October 2018 - 04:44 PM

View PostVxheous, on 17 October 2018 - 04:09 PM, said:

I think I would rather have 2 ERLL and +4 heatsinks over 2 CLPL (assuming theres crit slots to fit those 4 heatsinks)

Even after the new CERLL nerfs?

#36 thievingmagpi

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Posted 17 October 2018 - 05:03 PM

I wonder how this stuff will affect Battle for Midway

#37 Vxheous

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Posted 17 October 2018 - 05:15 PM

View PostFupDup, on 17 October 2018 - 04:44 PM, said:

Even after the new CERLL nerfs?


Dissipation seems to be king right now, so i think yes? I havent tested extensively though

#38 Khobai

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Posted 17 October 2018 - 06:39 PM

PGI will probably end up walking back the CDHS dissipation buffs somewhat. They way overbuffed CDHS dissipation and it ended up cancelling out a lot of the intended nerfs. After walking them back, CDHS will likely end up somewhere in between .22 and .15 (probably around .17 or .18)

Im pretty sure thats whats gonna end up happening. I hope they leave ISDHS alone at .22 though. ISDHS should have higher dissipation than CDHS because they take up more crit slots.

Edited by Khobai, 17 October 2018 - 06:44 PM.


#39 FupDup

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Posted 17 October 2018 - 06:46 PM

View PostKhobai, on 17 October 2018 - 06:39 PM, said:

PGI will probably end up walking back the CDHS dissipation buffs somewhat. They way overbuffed CDHS dissipation and it ended up cancelling out a lot of the intended nerfs. After walking them back, CDHS will likely end up somewhere in between .22 and .15 (probably around .17 or .18)

Clan DHS cannot go below 2.0 because that completely ***** a lot of mechs that lack the tonnage to boat Dubs.

#40 Y E O N N E

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Posted 17 October 2018 - 06:49 PM

View PostFupDup, on 17 October 2018 - 06:46 PM, said:

Clan DHS cannot go below 2.0 because that completely ***** a lot of mechs that lack the tonnage to boat Dubs.


Well...they quirked for that once, they can do it again.





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