22 replies to this topic

[Carbon Guardian]

Currently in MWO heat is not working as Battletech intended it.

At level 5 (16.6%) out of 30 on the heat scale, a mech's max speed is affected
lvl's 10, 15, 20 ,25 also reduce the mechs speed.

at lvl 8 or 26.6% the mechs aim is affected lvl's 13, 17, 24 increase the negative affects to aiming

lvl 14 or 44.6% there is a risk of engine shutdown. This would be interesting to see all them laser boats shutting down after one alpha strike then getting punished for their mistakes. Almost like a simulation of real life, right? lvl's 18, 22, 26 all have a shutdown roll (chance)

lvl's 19 (63.3%), 23, 28 all have a chance for an ammo explosion. Missile boats blowing themselves up, now that would be funny and realistic which is what a simulator is suppose to be isn't it, realistic?

What I am advocating is to make the heat system in MWO more robust, to incorporate the true impact of heat on mechs. Heat is the core currency of any Battlemech and ultimately separates the Pros from the Joe's. imagine a Spider running around and going slower from too much use of jump jets then becomes easy pickings. Or a catapult too trigger happy launching missiles then boom he loses a side torso. Or how about a hunchback-4p laser boat alpha striking then shutting down immediately after or during cutting down his dmg output?

In short I think proper implementation of heat will get rid of a lot of cheese from MWO make it more of a simulator, and tonnage based matches should be more even due to "unexpected" dmg or movement loss.

[BLACKR0SE]

I think there are enough heat restrictions. I want them to be interested in adding new things rather than changing existing ones.

When I look for updates, I only see them.

Let's increase it a little this month.
Let's drop it a little next month.

Let go of those tweaks now.

[BLACKR0SE]

When I look at what is added in a page update text, it does not exceed 2 lines.

1 page of fine tuning. A little too much for you don't you think?

Is there a new machine added?
a newly added feature?

[Widowmaker1981]

Firstly, what do you mean by 'realistic' ? Because literally no one would design a combat machine that had a random chance of shutting down when it fires its weapons once. Also its fairly ludicrous design for heat emitted as a result of weapons fire to be able to transfer sufficiently well to ammo storage locations to detonate the ammo.

The 'realistic' rules you refer to were designed to service a turn based strategy game where players control multiple mechs and roll dice to abstract piloting and gunnery skill. This is a first person game where we control one mech each in real time and there is no need to abstract piloting and gunnery skills - so obviously different rule sets are going to be required. Slavishly copying TT isnt the answer.

So, it would be better to state the issue you think we currently have and why your solution would improve matters.

Reading between the lines, you think mechs can output too much damage and that severely reducing heat capacity is the answer?
Have you considered that all this would do is to cause players to swap to weapons that dont generate much heat (Gauss/ACs)?

(Oh and also, in TT, 15 DHS was enough to completely heatsink 3 C-ERPPCs. Try that in MWO and youll shutdown / explode in short order, because our heat system is actually far MORE taxing than TT due to the massively increased rates of fire without increasing dissipation to compensate)

[simon1812]

TAMTAMBABY, on 01 April 2023 - 05:19 PM, said:

I think there are enough heat restrictions. I want them to be interested in adding new things rather than changing existing ones.

When I look for updates, I only see them.

Let's increase it a little this month.
Let's drop it a little next month.

Let go of those tweaks now.

That's not at all what Carbon suggested, I do agree though, laser weapons are king, with very few drawbacks, nor trade offs.

If you ask me, weapons (energy) should melt or explode or experience some malfunction when they overheat "in the specific part where they are located!, but instead we get some nonsense CT structure damage?
Also energy weapons located on arms dissipate heat as much as those located at torso or head? No difference? Really? Just saying, there are some problems the pilot is supposed to be very mindful when driving a battlemech and using its weapons, and I really wish we had more of that here. But instead we get what Tamtam is mentioned though, an update full of meaningless with tweatks that really do little for the gameplay.

Why? Because instead of a gameplay with depth all we get is CoD wannabe gameplay. We should've instead something authentic that can be its own thing and hard to compare to anything else...right? Dont mind me Im crazy...If I had some hundreds of million dollars I think I would buy the Rights for the franchise and hire a bunch of nerds to built me and awesome MWO game that is not desperate to be popular.

[Carbon Guardian]

Widowmaker1981, on 05 April 2023 - 07:57 AM, said:

Firstly, what do you mean by 'realistic' ? Because literally no one would design a combat machine that had a random chance of shutting down when it fires its weapons once. Also its fairly ludicrous design for heat emitted as a result of weapons fire to be able to transfer sufficiently well to ammo storage locations to detonate the ammo.

The 'realistic' rules you refer to were designed to service a turn based strategy game where players control multiple mechs and roll dice to abstract piloting and gunnery skill. This is a first person game where we control one mech each in real time and there is no need to abstract piloting and gunnery skills - so obviously different rule sets are going to be required. Slavishly copying TT isnt the answer.

So, it would be better to state the issue you think we currently have and why your solution would improve matters.

Reading between the lines, you think mechs can output too much damage and that severely reducing heat capacity is the answer?
Have you considered that all this would do is to cause players to swap to weapons that dont generate much heat (Gauss/ACs)?

(Oh and also, in TT, 15 DHS was enough to completely heatsink 3 C-ERPPCs. Try that in MWO and youll shutdown / explode in short order, because our heat system is actually far MORE taxing than TT due to the massively increased rates of fire without increasing dissipation to compensate)

Yes the table top rules are designed for a turn based game. However each turn, hex, weapon were all designed to be much more balanced and have trade offs for each weapons use distance etc. The fact that the engine is powering the energy to all weapons systems a player abusing his energy source should receive negative drawbacks not rewards, like pinpoint accuracy.
Each turn was also designed for the players to imaging that their mechs were moving over the course of ~10secs per TT turn. This can easily be designed into the current version of the game. I'm not sure where the disconnect lies?

TAMTAMBABY, on 01 April 2023 - 05:19 PM, said:

I think there are enough heat restrictions. I want them to be interested in adding new things rather than changing existing ones.

When I look for updates, I only see them.

Let's increase it a little this month.
Let's drop it a little next month.

Let go of those tweaks now.

I should have added remove all current 'ghost heat' non sense. That's not balancing that's bush league game design.

[Widowmaker1981]

Carbon Guardian, on 16 April 2023 - 09:46 PM, said:

Yes the table top rules are designed for a turn based game. However each turn, hex, weapon were all designed to be much more balanced and have trade offs for each weapons use distance etc. The fact that the engine is powering the energy to all weapons systems a player abusing his energy source should receive negative drawbacks not rewards, like pinpoint accuracy.
Each turn was also designed for the players to imaging that their mechs were moving over the course of ~10secs per TT turn. This can easily be designed into the current version of the game. I'm not sure where the disconnect lies?

The point is that TT is designed to be balanced and enjoyable under the following paradigm:

• Turn based with random luck based aiming / piloting
  
• Each player controls an entire force, consisting of multiple mechs which are balanced based on cost/total points

MWO needs to be balanced and enjoyable based on the following:

• Real time simulation, with aiming and piloting 100% driven by player skill
  
• Each player controls a single mech only, which therefore need to be balanced against each other.

These two paradigms are completely different and mean taking the values from one and copying them to the other will not result in a balanced game.


Do you think MWO would be better if:

• ALL weapons shared the exact same rate of fire (or if increased, damage decreased to compensate). An AC20 does ten times the DPS of an AC2
  
• Weapon hit location on the target mech is random. Shoot with 6 MLs and they will likely hit 4-5 different components.
  
• Assaults > Heavies > Mediums > Lights. Anyone choosing to play a light is fodder, by design.
  
• Clans > IS. By a really, really long way if we use base stats.
  
• All terrain is flat. Since in TT hardpoint locations for weapons are irrelevant - belly level guns are just as easy to hit with as shoulder mounted guns. In order to replicate this in a 3D game, we cant have terrain making higher mounts more effective.

If you do think the above would be good, we have such different ideas of what makes a fun game that this conversation is pointless.


If you dont think this would be good, then you already agree that we should not be slavishly copying TT rules. At that point, the heat system is also up for negotiation - and in fact it obviously has to be changed, given how much the relative DPS of weapons has been adjusted.

Feel free to make your argument that certain things should happen as the heat scale increases based on what currently happens in the game and how you would like it to change, but if you just point to TT rules and say it should be like this because of 'source material says so' i consider your argument to be invalid and not properly thought out.

Personally, i think we should minimize RNG effects. If something happens at a certain heat level, it should ALWAYS happen. RNG is the antithesis of skill imo.

Carbon Guardian, on 16 April 2023 - 09:46 PM, said:

I should have added remove all current 'ghost heat' non sense. That's not balancing that's bush league game design.

I agree 'ghost heat' is a fairly opaque system and doesnt really make a lot of logical sense. However, we need something to prevent massed identical weapon systems beyond a certain point. TT rules and values dont work here, because: A) Dice roll aiming means that its no harder to hit when firing an AC20, an LRM10, 2 MLs and a Gauss than it is with 6 PPCs. But when we are aiming, hitting the target with 6 PPCs is MASSIVELY easier due to only having one firing profile to deal with. And B.) Since we don't randomize hit locations the value of grouped fire is astronomically higher.

Its not the only way to do it, some kind of energy draw system that limits what can be fired simultaneously might work, for example. But it does work and something is needed.

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 19 April 2023 - 05:13 AM.

[Carbon Guardian]

Widowmaker1981, on 05 April 2023 - 07:57 AM, said:

Firstly, what do you mean by 'realistic' ? Because literally no one would design a combat machine that had a random chance of shutting down when it fires its weapons once. Also its fairly ludicrous design for heat emitted as a result of weapons fire to be able to transfer sufficiently well to ammo storage locations to detonate the ammo.

The 'realistic' rules you refer to were designed to service a turn based strategy game where players control multiple mechs and roll dice to abstract piloting and gunnery skill. This is a first person game where we control one mech each in real time and there is no need to abstract piloting and gunnery skills - so obviously different rule sets are going to be required. Slavishly copying TT isnt the answer.

So, it would be better to state the issue you think we currently have and why your solution would improve matters.

Reading between the lines, you think mechs can output too much damage and that severely reducing heat capacity is the answer?
Have you considered that all this would do is to cause players to swap to weapons that dont generate much heat (Gauss/ACs)?

(Oh and also, in TT, 15 DHS was enough to completely heatsink 3 C-ERPPCs. Try that in MWO and youll shutdown / explode in short order, because our heat system is actually far MORE taxing than TT due to the massively increased rates of fire without increasing dissipation to compensate)

I'm sorry for your mental state, a 'realistic' mech experience in MWO would be based on the Battletech universe not reality. It's a tactical simulation board and video game. I know this is difficult for fools to grasp, but you aren't a fool are you, you understood what was meant by realistic.

Considering Clans like to or need to fight at extended and long range or risk shutting down. 3 C-ERPPC's don't all hit pinpoint locations like in MWO, I'm not sure why you think this is a valid argument. Aim gets worse the more heat you have built up = 3 C-ERPPCs hitting 3 different locations or missing altogether. One shot wait to cool down or risk the worse aim, while a mech is closing the distance. I'm not sure if you thought this through or just want to argue?

[Widowmaker1981]

Carbon Guardian, on 20 April 2023 - 10:42 AM, said:

I'm sorry for your mental state, a 'realistic' mech experience in MWO would be based on the Battletech universe not reality. It's a tactical simulation board and video game. I know this is difficult for fools to grasp, but you aren't a fool are you, you understood what was meant by realistic.

Considering Clans like to or need to fight at extended and long range or risk shutting down. 3 C-ERPPC's don't all hit pinpoint locations like in MWO, I'm not sure why you think this is a valid argument. Aim gets worse the more heat you have built up = 3 C-ERPPCs hitting 3 different locations or missing altogether. One shot wait to cool down or risk the worse aim, while a mech is closing the distance. I'm not sure if you thought this through or just want to argue?

You have no idea about my mental state - as it happens it is in fact utterly terrible, i came back to this game because its one of the few things that can occupy my consciousness completely enough that i actually do stop thinking about stuff.

But yeah, i knew by 'realistic' you actually meant ' exactly like the tabletop game'. I just think that its is foolish to expect a ruleset designed for a totally different game type to apply well here. Its Battletech because we have Battlemechs and PPCs etc, not because a Large Pulse Laser does exactly 10 damage per 10 seconds, or whatever.

My point about the PPCs was purely about the heat system. A mech in TT that has 16 DHS (1 extra for movement) and 3 ERPPCs will NEVER take any negative heat effects, because it sinks all the heat from its guns every turn (Heat effects in TT are applied AFTER all weapons are fired and reduction from sinks is applied, so im not sure what you are talking about when you talk about firing one PPC at a time).

In MWO, a mech with 3 C-ERPPCs and 16 DHS can easily blow itself up from heat. Ergo, our heat system is actually more punishing than the tabletop one. Most MWO designed mechs (mine, at least) would run cool as ice if transferred to tabletop. The fact that we have weapons that are aimed instead of random* hit locations is entirely irrelevant to this point.

*WTF is wrong with lore pilots that they cant even try to aim their guns at a specific part of slow, 15 meter tall mechs?

[BLACKR0SE]

this alone is not enough. It is very important at the point where you put the coolers.
plus the thickness of your armor.
You can lose 4 coolers in 2 blows.
don't look at all of them as healthy.
For example, Partizan is like paper.
LT RT on DREADNOUGHT is like paper.

it can break apart at any time.

Edited by TAMTAMBABY, 21 April 2023 - 09:25 PM.

[Carbon Guardian]

Widowmaker1981, on 20 April 2023 - 11:27 AM, said:

You have no idea about my mental state - as it happens it is in fact utterly terrible, i came back to this game because its one of the few things that can occupy my consciousness completely enough that i actually do stop thinking about stuff.

But yeah, i knew by 'realistic' you actually meant ' exactly like the tabletop game'. I just think that its is foolish to expect a ruleset designed for a totally different game type to apply well here. Its Battletech because we have Battlemechs and PPCs etc, not because a Large Pulse Laser does exactly 10 damage per 10 seconds, or whatever.

My point about the PPCs was purely about the heat system. A mech in TT that has 16 DHS (1 extra for movement) and 3 ERPPCs will NEVER take any negative heat effects, because it sinks all the heat from its guns every turn (Heat effects in TT are applied AFTER all weapons are fired and reduction from sinks is applied, so im not sure what you are talking about when you talk about firing one PPC at a time).

In MWO, a mech with 3 C-ERPPCs and 16 DHS can easily blow itself up from heat. Ergo, our heat system is actually more punishing than the tabletop one. Most MWO designed mechs (mine, at least) would run cool as ice if transferred to tabletop. The fact that we have weapons that are aimed instead of random* hit locations is entirely irrelevant to this point.

*WTF is wrong with lore pilots that they cant even try to aim their guns at a specific part of slow, 15 meter tall mechs?

Let's take it a step farther, 3 erppc's one arm 1 each side torso, the torso mounted erppc's don't converge they shoot straight makes it impossible to hit all 3 erppc's with pinpoint accuracy in the same location. This will also keep in check medium laser boats like that damn hunchback HBK-4P

[KursedVixen]

Widowmaker1981, on 20 April 2023 - 11:27 AM, said:

In MWO, a mech with 3 C-ERPPCs and 16 DHS can easily blow itself up from heat. Ergo, our heat system is actually more punishing than the tabletop one. Most MWO designed mechs (mine, at least) would run cool as ice if transferred to tabletop. The fact that we have weapons that are aimed instead of random* hit locations is entirely irrelevant to this point.

*WTF is wrong with lore pilots that they cant even try to aim their guns at a specific part of slow, 15 meter tall mechs?

I do think the heat scale in game is a bit too punishing especially on the clan side which is suppose to have better equipment.... but I wouldn't mind seeing a overall drop in heat from all weapons or an overall increase in overall heat dissapation.

[nvx 116]

Carbon Guardian, on 01 April 2023 - 10:09 AM, said:

Currently in MWO heat is not working as Battletech intended it.

At level 5 (16.6%) out of 30 on the heat scale, a mech's max speed is affected
lvl's 10, 15, 20 ,25 also reduce the mechs speed.

at lvl 8 or 26.6% the mechs aim is affected lvl's 13, 17, 24 increase the negative affects to aiming

lvl 14 or 44.6% there is a risk of engine shutdown. This would be interesting to see all them laser boats shutting down after one alpha strike then getting punished for their mistakes. Almost like a simulation of real life, right? lvl's 18, 22, 26 all have a shutdown roll (chance)

lvl's 19 (63.3%), 23, 28 all have a chance for an ammo explosion. Missile boats blowing themselves up, now that would be funny and realistic which is what a simulator is suppose to be isn't it, realistic?

What I am advocating is to make the heat system in MWO more robust, to incorporate the true impact of heat on mechs. Heat is the core currency of any Battlemech and ultimately separates the Pros from the Joe's. imagine a Spider running around and going slower from too much use of jump jets then becomes easy pickings. Or a catapult too trigger happy launching missiles then boom he loses a side torso. Or how about a hunchback-4p laser boat alpha striking then shutting down immediately after or during cutting down his dmg output?

In short I think proper implementation of heat will get rid of a lot of cheese from MWO make it more of a simulator, and tonnage based matches should be more even due to "unexpected" dmg or movement loss.

while this is what it is on unskilled mecha the skilltree and the cauldron members and the override button said no to heat and thus what we have is viable lazer vomit builds missle boats and Daka builds that shouldnt be feasible in the mechwarrior universe then again mwo isnt cannon in lore unless you count it as a propaganda piece from raslehague before they fell or the backwards society
of the draconics combine that's why every thing is screwed over and half baked and it would make sense why theres a clan meta going lore wise... but I think in real life theres people in the company that have not read a rulebook or played tabletop to figure out that the current mwo has a math problem have have had the math problem since 2014 that's why clanners can sit on the other side of the map and still hit you 9 squares away for full damage while is have to be in thier face to do max damage

[Carbon Guardian]

nvx 116, on 09 May 2023 - 07:03 AM, said:

while this is what it is on unskilled mecha the skilltree and the cauldron members and the override button said no to heat and thus what we have is viable lazer vomit builds missle boats and Daka builds that shouldnt be feasible in the mechwarrior universe then again mwo isnt cannon in lore unless you count it as a propaganda piece from raslehague before they fell or the backwards society
of the draconics combine that's why every thing is screwed over and half baked and it would make sense why theres a clan meta going lore wise... but I think in real life theres people in the company that have not read a rulebook or played tabletop to figure out that the current mwo has a math problem have have had the math problem since 2014 that's why clanners can sit on the other side of the map and still hit you 9 squares away for full damage while is have to be in thier face to do max damage

Basically the game feels like the game designers are too afraid to make the game for their target audience and would rather make everything almost right in hopes to reach a broader audience. If only this company knew that 80% of their revenue comes from 20% of their players. Hence it's better to make this game as if it was cannon vs the current game state.

[epikt]

Carbon Guardian, on 10 May 2023 - 04:14 PM, said:

80% of their revenue comes from 20% of their players. Hence it's better to make this game as if it was cannon vs the current game state.

I'm not so sure most paying players are mech-dads wanting MWO to be a tabletop carbon copy.

[Rondoe]

epikt, on 10 May 2023 - 05:46 PM, said:

I'm not so sure most paying players are mech-dads wanting MWO to be a tabletop carbon copy.

Agree, You have to change things up in video games to make them work and viable to the player base.
I play TT BattleTech when I want table top rules.

[Widowmaker1981]

Carbon Guardian, on 10 May 2023 - 04:14 PM, said:

Basically the game feels like the game designers are too afraid to make the game for their target audience and would rather make everything almost right in hopes to reach a broader audience. If only this company knew that 80% of their revenue comes from 20% of their players. Hence it's better to make this game as if it was cannon vs the current game state.

1) Its Canon. As in Canonical. 'Cannon' is a different word which refers to a gunpowder weapon... sorry to be a pedantic *** - this is a pet hate. if you have only heard a word or phrase (as opposed to reading it), its often a good idea to check if you heard it correctly before using it yourself - another one is 'Per se' (Latin for 'by itself') being incorrectly heard as 'Per say', which makes no sense.

2) People who want a pure tabletop translation either haven't thought it through or want (what i would consider) to be an utterly terrible game with absolutely no room for player skill (not to be confused with tactics). Being able to aim at specific body parts with intention breaks Battletech, and as soon as you change that part, everything is up for discussion. Im very glad PGI dont cater to that market.

3) If you want a PC game which is a reasonably faithful recreation of TT rules, Harebrained Schemes made one. Its even a turn based game where you control multiple mechs, so the ruleset actually makes sense in the environment!

[BLACKR0SE]

I would have liked you to try on the RIVER CITY map. It's really torture when you have a dumb team. I'm trying to cross over. Being a heavy and slow mech, it's impossible to cross without protection. No one helped. I died while trying to cross.

I really hate team play. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.

[nvx 116]

Carbon Guardian, on 10 May 2023 - 04:14 PM, said:

Basically the game feels like the game designers are too afraid to make the game for their target audience and would rather make everything almost right in hopes to reach a broader audience. If only this company knew that 80% of their revenue comes from 20% of their players. Hence it's better to make this game as if it was cannon vs the current game state.

Could not agree more and all the youtubers out there and people who makes the metamechs website
Makes the most obscene abuse of the current heat system that its practically a suggestion to them or something to break

[nvx 116]

Widowmaker1981, on 11 May 2023 - 06:29 AM, said:

1) Its Canon. As in Canonical. 'Cannon' is a different word which refers to a gunpowder weapon... sorry to be a pedantic *** - this is a pet hate. if you have only heard a word or phrase (as opposed to reading it), its often a good idea to check if you heard it correctly before using it yourself - another one is 'Per se' (Latin for 'by itself') being incorrectly heard as 'Per say', which makes no sense.

2) People who want a pure tabletop translation either haven't thought it through or want (what i would consider) to be an utterly terrible game with absolutely no room for player skill (not to be confused with tactics). Being able to aim at specific body parts with intention breaks Battletech, and as soon as you change that part, everything is up for discussion. Im very glad PGI dont cater to that market.

3) If you want a PC game which is a reasonably faithful recreation of TT rules, Harebrained Schemes made one. Its even a turn based game where you control multiple mechs, so the ruleset actually makes sense in the environment!

Oh i dont want a pure tt game I want pgi to get rid of all the [Redacted] they accumulated thought out the years
The only reasion why the corsair a7 exist was counter the clanners that said hey let me stick 14 atm misslepods on a mech and then fire them off all at once and watch the mech go bye bye and then they still nerfed it cause the atm clanner tossed money at the devs .. it's also why faction play died and even in quickplay the is assaults cant assault the only reasion why people win with is mechs is because the clanners can work alone and the is mechs heavily carried by clanners end of story