54 replies to this topic

[Ilostmycactus]

There have been times when ghost heat feels very touchy, even if I've tried to stagger sometimes it pops anyway. There should at bare minimum be an indicator that shows when it's safe to fire (you can label it as power draw like people have mentioned if you want).

It probably wouldn't be fun but you could heavily enforce firing number like with how you can't charge more than 2 gauss at once. Just say that the mech computer only allows you to fire X lasers every X seconds. So instead of heat spikes from ghost heat you literally just can't shoot more than that number of weapons. And then the computer notifies you after a period you can go again. Not a great idea but there it is.

[VeeOt Dragon]

that would actually be interesting. i would add that when override is engaged it bypasses that limitation and instead uses the ghost heat factors (perhaps even increasing the ghost heat potential as you are overriding a safety feature)

[Curccu]

Ilostmycactus, on 14 March 2023 - 09:10 PM, said:

There have been times when ghost heat feels very touchy, even if I've tried to stagger sometimes it pops anyway. There should at bare minimum be an indicator that shows when it's safe to fire (you can label it as power draw like people have mentioned if you want).

It probably wouldn't be fun but you could heavily enforce firing number like with how you can't charge more than 2 gauss at once. Just say that the mech computer only allows you to fire X lasers every X seconds. So instead of heat spikes from ghost heat you literally just can't shoot more than that number of weapons. And then the computer notifies you after a period you can go again. Not a great idea but there it is.

Or that you could shoot what ever you want but your reactor crasheddown and it takes ~5/10 seconds to start it again and maybe like extra second for every 1 point of extra energy drawn to bring it back up...

Probably not that fun of an idea really .

[sycocys]

Ilostmycactus, on 14 March 2023 - 09:10 PM, said:

It probably wouldn't be fun but you could heavily enforce firing number like with how you can't charge more than 2 gauss at once.

Based on my reading of the canon information on the weapon you shouldn't even be able to charge 2 guass at once. One was enough to draw out your energy threshold and fired with any other weapons about shut down your computers and targeting system.

A proper energy draw/ energy system would have helped to solve a bunch of equipment imbalance problems, and given them a secondary/tertiary system to zero sum the "skills" out with.

[Ilostmycactus]

VeeOt Dragon, on 14 March 2023 - 09:25 PM, said:

that would actually be interesting. i would add that when override is engaged it bypasses that limitation and instead uses the ghost heat factors (perhaps even increasing the ghost heat potential as you are overriding a safety feature)

I was thinking override could be an active cooldown. Like once you pop it it only works for like 20 seconds or whatever. Maybe even only once per match because you burn the circuits out. If mechs are really valuable equipment it does seem a little strange that you can basically self immolate at will.

sycocys, on 15 March 2023 - 04:42 AM, said:

Based on my reading of the canon information on the weapon you shouldn't even be able to charge 2 guass at once. One was enough to draw out your energy threshold and fired with any other weapons about shut down your computers and targeting system.

A proper energy draw/ energy system would have helped to solve a bunch of equipment imbalance problems, and given them a secondary/tertiary system to zero sum the "skills" out with.

The thing is why would you ever bring more than one gauss. If energy isn't available once it's cooled down to charge again, it wouldn't even increase your dps.
There would be no reason to take it over an ac 10 unless you had to have the faster projectile.

[sycocys]

Ilostmycactus, on 15 March 2023 - 09:56 AM, said:

The thing is why would you ever bring more than one gauss. If energy isn't available once it's cooled down to charge again, it wouldn't even increase your dps.
There would be no reason to take it over an ac 10 unless you had to have the faster projectile.

I don't play the board/table game but I'd reckon the fact that many/most mechs depending on your timeline frame would probably still be limited to single heat sinks would be a selling point. Also the loading of random crap into the cannon when you run out of ammo.
But what its described as for canon is that firing it and even 1-2 ML would draw enough load away from the computers that the lasers would be completely de-synced from it (and probably each other) - so firing 2 probably just shouldn't be a thing, much less firing 2 + PPCs should probably outright cook your computer system if done in the timing that MWO lets them be fired.

I don't like using guass myself (think it should just have a substantially long cool down instead of the charge), but if the game is being built off of the tt ruleset as a base and that being the reason we can't have min range ramps to balance lasers there should probably be a legitimate change to something like guass that makes it a far less capable close range weapon.

[pbiggz]

I'll point out for the crowd that in general, all these complex firing restrictions generally feel bad which is a great sin for any game designer.

Any effort to introduce these would require a very long period of testing and iteration just to make sure it feels right. Anything short of that and you've just made mechs harder and less rewarding to pilot. Its a risky game to play.

[VeeOt Dragon]

i agree its risky but there is such a glut of pin point high alpha builds now days that something on some level has to be done to mitigate it. ghost heat helps to a degree. something else that would hep is to get rid of convergence on torso mounted weapons while leaving convergence as is for arm weapons. apparently something like that existed in the beta (if i remember what people who played back then have said) though it was a system where you had to get that targeting box and only then would your weapons be able to converge. (don't quote me on this though). honestly that would be just as good of a system. have it so you have 0 convergence unless you have that targeting box though keep it unaffected by ECM as it is already a bit to prevalent in the game as is. if nothing else it would get people to use the damn R key.

[Tyman4]

Build diversity my left walnut. The Nova was purpose built to boat, and you can't get anywhere NEAR the default build without getting cooked alive. God forbid you link fire too fast and get a overheat to blow off a side torso.

So instead we have dervishes with 6+ srms packs, artic wolves with the same, chargers with 10 lasers.

GH was a complete waste of time, still is a complete waste of time, and confuses the everloving heck outta new players.
Which is why I start them in a hunchback with an ac20. Can't F it up...

[Heavy Money]

Tyman4, on 17 March 2023 - 02:57 PM, said:

Build diversity my left walnut. The Nova was purpose built to boat, and you can't get anywhere NEAR the default build without getting cooked alive. God forbid you link fire too fast and get a overheat to blow off a side torso.

So instead we have dervishes with 6+ srms packs, artic wolves with the same, chargers with 10 lasers.

GH was a complete waste of time, still is a complete waste of time, and confuses the everloving heck outta new players.
Which is why I start them in a hunchback with an ac20. Can't F it up...

GH being inappropriate in some places is still better than everyone just running 1 shot alpha boats.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Blood Rose, on 14 March 2023 - 11:05 AM, said:

TL;DR MWO used to have timed convergence for weapons. MWO dropped timed convergence in favour of instant convergence, something that makes no sense logically and breaks the lore massively, because a certain subset of players HAD TO HAVE MUH ELITE COD 360 INSTAHIT.
This led to massive damage pinpoint alphas that rendered mechs dead in a hit. PGI has been frantically trying to find an answer to this ever since, from doubling armour to quirks. Ghost Heat was one of these ideas. It doesnt really work.

lolno, Gaussapults and Lunchbacks were very much a thing in those days and they largely ignored the timed convergence. Much like anyone suggesting hardpoints, using mechanisms that are very much dependent on number of hardpoints or location of weapons anymore than they already do, is actively penalizing some class of mechs which was the issue with the timed convergence nonsense because there is also some mech that allows for something that breaks the mold.

This also isn't CoD, get a new line. Anyone who has actually played CoD knows this game isn't even close, CoD is faster than CS:GO and this game is probably 5x as slow of pace compared to CS:GO and thats ignoring other items (like how CoD for a long time used cone of fire instead of predictable recoil patterns).

You wanna know what actually increased the power threshold of the game, DHS and HSR. Being able to hit without having to compensate for network latency (as much) and being able to have roughly 75% more firepower changed a lot.

sycocys, on 15 March 2023 - 04:42 AM, said:

A proper energy draw/ energy system would have helped to solve a bunch of equipment imbalance problems, and given them a secondary/tertiary system to zero sum the "skills" out with.

Proper energy draw is just heat. All versions I've seen of energy draw are just short term version of heat, and almost all of them move the needle waaaay too in favor of dakka.

[The Brewer]

Tyman4, on 17 March 2023 - 02:57 PM, said:

Build diversity my left walnut. The Nova was purpose built to boat, and you can't get anywhere NEAR the default build without getting cooked alive. God forbid you link fire too fast and get a overheat to blow off a side torso.

So instead we have dervishes with 6+ srms packs, artic wolves with the same, chargers with 10 lasers.

GH was a complete waste of time, still is a complete waste of time, and confuses the everloving heck outta new players.
Which is why I start them in a hunchback with an ac20. Can't F it up...

Nova is one of the few stock mechs in the game that even works, and a strong example of why ghost heat exists. Even considering it has to be stagger fired 6+6 it fits into the QP meta very nicely IME. I use it fairly often. 78 damage in one staggered volley from a medium mech, at medium range, is not to be dismissed.

Where I agree is GH is not well documented enough within the game, like most of the important mechanics. It’s not obvious that it can be dodged with a 0.5sec stagger. It’s apparently not obvious that without GH there would be an abundance of builds that could dump an amount of damage into one component from 1km away that would make the game entirely unfun. That’s really only scratching the surface of it.

For what it’s worth I wouldn’t be starting newbies in an AC20 Hunchie either, but that’s trending toward a different topic.

[East Indy]

LordNothing, on 17 February 2023 - 06:34 PM, said:

and replacing it, to what, and what for?

It's the basic problem of any first-person translation of BattleTech: weapons don't have inherent diminishing returns.

Most developers and players would agree that targeting specific robot parts is worth keeping despite no RNG elements to spread damage. But it introduces a major design challenge that defines the resulting game and has no consensus.

Without diminishing returns, two weapons are effectively 100% better than one, making a 'Mech with X+1 hardpoints better than a 'Mech with only X, while a 'Mech with one weapon group to click becomes better than a 'Mech with two or more. So right off the bat, the thematic element of reasonably mixed loadouts is made impractical, while gameplay is narrowed into a race to mount the most weapons that will fire once to eliminate a target.

We saw that in 2013 when Host State Rewind fixed direct fire, and players began exclusively running 'Mechs with tonnage and energy hardpoints for 3 or more PPCs...leading to Heat Scale.

Heat Scale saved the game but it doesn't solve the basic problem. Players are clever, and just work around heat thresholds like tax brackets, choosing 'Mechs with maximum allowable weapons fireable with minimum clicks.

Diminishing returns would probably be most workable as degraded effectiveness instead of direct punishments like Heat Scale or Power Draw. Ballistic weapons might recoil, spreading shots; missiles might collide, eliminating projectiles; energy might overdraw, reducing output. The impact to player choices would be diversifying loadouts, since X would be more efficient than X+1; and possibly even pacing fire over time for better accuracy or more effectiveness.

Obviously, MechWarrior has a culture and expectations, and I think generally players -- or at least the most vocal ones -- want that alpha male thrill of building the ultimate machine that deals single, trick-shot kills. And if that's what the market will bear, so be it.

But I think this is the most clear analysis of where MechWarrior turns into what it is (and arguably has always been).

[Quicksilver Aberration]

East Indy, on 19 March 2023 - 08:19 AM, said:

It's the basic problem of any first-person translation of BattleTech: weapons don't have inherent diminishing returns. Most developers and players would agree that targeting specific robot parts is worth keeping despite no RNG elements to spread damage.

I'd argue that's not the problem because technically boating is powerful even in TT (ultimately it comes down to specialization). However there is one factor in translation that sort of exacerbates this, and it is that firing mechanics matter in FPS translations. Where before in TT the only real factor in what weapons you combined were range synergies and what gave you the best bang for your buck, FPS add in a factor that is RNG'd away in TT. How a weapon fires and behaves after firing matters. Missiles and direct fire weapons don't combine well because they require multi-tasking that takes away from focusing on more important things (like positioning). Velocities also complicate things, for examples volleyballs like ACs require you to lead which means you might not be locking on to targets for your lock-on missiles during that time which makes lasers more attractive because they are instant hit and require no lead time allowing you to lock on. It's the same reason that lasers don't combine well with most projectile weapons in this game, they are just too slow it makes using them together more complicated than it needs to be. For example the reason why Gauss is successful with lasers isn't just because of the low heat, it is also because they have some of the fastest projectiles that allows you to use them together and still be effective.

This is the biggest design issue, ghost heat or diminishing returns helps incentivize using with other potentially less efficient weapons for the task (so you get punished either way), but part of the reason this is isn't just because of numbers, but just friction with weapon mechanics.

Now to your point, that is part of the issue with what I mentioned about tonnage disparities. As in TT, you paid for the ability to deal consistent concentrated damage. Example being 4 ML vs an AC20 deals similar damage, but 4 MLs spread more damage. Though it does have 4 to-hit rolls which if DnD has taught me anything, does make them a bit more consistent which is why I think the TT designers overestimated the power of that concentrated damage. Regardless it means the translation is fighting an uphill battle which is partially why I still think MW games need to start from scratch for designing the equipment numbers and construction rules for an FPS version, imo you can't have both a "pure" translation and a balanced game.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 19 March 2023 - 02:45 PM.

[LordNothing]

East Indy, on 19 March 2023 - 08:19 AM, said:

It's the basic problem of any first-person translation of BattleTech: weapons don't have inherent diminishing returns.

Most developers and players would agree that targeting specific robot parts is worth keeping despite no RNG elements to spread damage. But it introduces a major design challenge that defines the resulting game and has no consensus.

Without diminishing returns, two weapons are effectively 100% better than one, making a 'Mech with X+1 hardpoints better than a 'Mech with only X, while a 'Mech with one weapon group to click becomes better than a 'Mech with two or more. So right off the bat, the thematic element of reasonably mixed loadouts is made impractical, while gameplay is narrowed into a race to mount the most weapons that will fire once to eliminate a target.

We saw that in 2013 when Host State Rewind fixed direct fire, and players began exclusively running 'Mechs with tonnage and energy hardpoints for 3 or more PPCs...leading to Heat Scale.

Heat Scale saved the game but it doesn't solve the basic problem. Players are clever, and just work around heat thresholds like tax brackets, choosing 'Mechs with maximum allowable weapons fireable with minimum clicks.

Diminishing returns would probably be most workable as degraded effectiveness instead of direct punishments like Heat Scale or Power Draw. Ballistic weapons might recoil, spreading shots; missiles might collide, eliminating projectiles; energy might overdraw, reducing output. The impact to player choices would be diversifying loadouts, since X would be more efficient than X+1; and possibly even pacing fire over time for better accuracy or more effectiveness.

Obviously, MechWarrior has a culture and expectations, and I think generally players -- or at least the most vocal ones -- want that alpha male thrill of building the ultimate machine that deals single, trick-shot kills. And if that's what the market will bear, so be it.

But I think this is the most clear analysis of where MechWarrior turns into what it is (and arguably has always been).

of course there needs to be diminishing returns, gh is just a bad implementation for that. the main problem is it chooses a control lever that does not effect all weapons the same. the use of look up tables rather than a universal formula means plenty of exploitable loopholes. entire metas are built around those loopholes, i use them.

i do agree about degraded effectiveness. the intended effect of any weapon is to do damage and where a weapon has too much damage for its opportunity cost, you spread that damage over space and time. recoil like what we have on the hgauss would be good on the bigger ballistics, dps ballistics would be better served with cof mechanics. more guns, more rattle, less precision. ghost spread kind of makes sense for missiles, you put too many birds in the air at once, and your targeting systems need to struggle to keep up. ghost duration is kind of energy draw light. in all cases damage output dictates the magnitude of diminishing returns.