6 replies to this topic

[Void Angel]

[mod]This discussion was split from its original topic Short Question, Short Answer, because it dit not honor the rules of said particular topic.[/mod]

Heat Scale is the real name of "ghost heat," which is a loaded term made up by malcontents who didn't like the system when it was implemented as a soft fix to the massive alpha strikes being used at the time.

The idea was that it was "unrealistic" to add extra heat for simultaneously firing, say, 4 PPCs and two Gauss Rifles at once - hence the epithet. It "broke immersion" and "didn't make sense." The real reason was that they didn't want the system, either because they preferred their own pet solutions, or liked the game to be broken - and were dishonestly pretending that their problem was "realism," or "immersion." I didn't mind the disagreement with the devs - but the dishonesty offended me, to the point that the term is a minor pet peeve of mine to this day. =}

However, this is definitely turning into a long answer, and is only somewhat related to the question asked...

Edited by Ekson Valdez, 19 September 2022 - 09:51 PM.

[martian]

Void Angel, on 17 September 2022 - 02:07 PM, said:

Heat Scale is the real name of "ghost heat," which is a loaded term made up by malcontents who didn't like the system when it was implemented as a soft fix to the massive alpha strikes being used at the time.

PGI uses this term too, so we can consider it to be official term.

Piranha Games Inc. said:

ghost heat limit

Piranha Games Inc. said:

ghost heat change

Piranha Games Inc. said:

penalizing ghost heat

Piranha Games Inc. said:

arbitrary ghost heat limit

Piranha Games Inc. said:

bypass ghost heat limit

[Void Angel]

martian, on 18 September 2022 - 08:24 AM, said:

PGI uses this term too, so we can consider it to be official term.

Gun rights advocates say "assault weapon" from time to time in the US, too. It's still a made-up term meant for propaganda. =)

[ScrapIron Prime]

That has no bearing on the idea at all. If the company that made and runs the game calls it “ghost heat”, the n that’s what the mechanic is called.

The mechanic is there to place some limit on boating. The only real alternative would have been to limit hardpoint sizes based on lore. Ghost heat is simpler and allows players more freedom to create, rather than being tied to the board game.

[Void Angel]

Incorrect. Just because the company has referred to the mechanic as ghost heat in some communications does not make it "what the mechanic is called," unless the company actually says they're calling it that - and they're still using the term Heat Scale Limit in the patch notes.

So the allusion has total bearing on the topic at hand, because while both terms have fallen into common usage, they remain political terms designed to sway an argument - in the case of MWO, invented by the same people who engaged in a deliberate disinformation campaign targeting the game's Steam release.

This is not to say that anyone who uses the term is being dishonest in any way. It's a commonly-used term now - most of the people who originated this stuff left years ago, after loudly proclaiming that the same game we're playing today was "dead." But this is a minor peeve of mine because of the dishonesty of the term's origin (just like the gun control term,) and because it still causes confusion to the occasional newbie to this day.

Edited by Void Angel, 18 September 2022 - 07:15 PM.

[ScrapIron Prime]

I guess I’ll have to differ with you there. I never considered the term “ghost heat” to be some sort of “misinformation campaign”, as you’ve said. Rather, it’s a workable descriptor for a balance mechanism that does not exist in other iterations of the genre.

[Void Angel]

I'm not debating how most people use it, or objecting to its use. But "Ghost Heat" originated as an epithet; as a complaint. The people who popularized it on the forums explicitly explained that they were calling it "ghost heat" because it "came from nowhere;" the "tabletop canon" people got in on it, too - despite the fact that a very similar mechanic actually exists in Solaris VII. The term caught on because it was less cumbersome than its real name, and because a lot of people found the mechanic unintuitive.

The disinformation campaign was a different project of theirs - they literally tried to swamp MWO with Steam reviews claiming that the game was pay to win. They knew they were lying, and they didn't care (when the freaking Goons tell you you're being petty, you know you've hit a significant low.) The attitude is the same in both cases, but "Ghost Heat" is an exercise in argument from definition, rather than outright disinformation and lying.