155 replies to this topic

[Farmer]

Sickocrow, on 02 November 2012 - 08:27 PM, said:

If it's done with intent for game balance by changing the DHS value than it's fine. This isn't TT canon, and you can't just drop those values in without serious adjustment.

No body has actually even used the damn things yet, and yet the whingefest is 5 pages long.

Becuase at 17 HS's, the new implementation becomes worse than what we have now, and what we have now has problems. That's basic arithmetic. And it ignores the fact that more than half the lasers are about to generate even more heat than they already do.

[80Bit]

I don't think that changing DHS to a 1.4 factor is a good way to correct the issue. If there is a heat issue it should be addressed by other means, because "DHS is like a HS but 1.4 times as effective" is an ugly and confusing mechanic.

I feel the heat situation should be resolved by a change in the way heat sink slots in engines work.

[Clay Pigeon]

Or they could individually tweak weapon heat values. You know, the scalpel approach?

The cynic in me thinks that IGPs qa team tested this by having two swaybacks fight each other, one with SHS and one with DHS, and when the DHS one won repeatedly, they nerfed DHS repeatedly until the SHS one won.

[Vassago Rain]

Clay Pigeon, on 03 November 2012 - 04:59 AM, said:

Or they could individually tweak weapon heat values. You know, the scalpel approach?

The cynic in me thinks that IGPs qa team tested this by having two swaybacks fight each other, one with SHS and one with DHS, and when the DHS one won repeatedly, they nerfed DHS repeatedly until the SHS one won.

They have a QA team?

[MustrumRidcully]

I don't think they really understand how badly their weapons are currently balanced, and that DHS would basically just be giving us the way to close the gap between ballistics and energy weapons.

How they define "Heat was no longer a concern"? People are using the K2 with 2 PPCs instead of 2 Gauss Rifles, or what?

heat will never stop being a concern if you know what you're doing. There is no reason to not run a mech that runs a bit hotter. Better heat sinks just means you can equip more.

The current state of things is that you need to run less weapons* than in the table top to run a reasonably hot mech. That's really what they think is reasonable?

If they want heat to matter, they should look into the heat capacity they give players, and give us an actual heat scale that causes cumulative penalties, and not just go with "OMG, I must press O to override the shutdown"


*) Actually, that's only true for energy intensive weapons. If you take a Gauss or an Auto-Cannon, you can have close to as many as before.

[CrushU]

Clay Pigeon, on 03 November 2012 - 04:59 AM, said:

Or they could individually tweak weapon heat values. You know, the scalpel approach?

The cynic in me thinks that IGPs qa team tested this by having two swaybacks fight each other, one with SHS and one with DHS, and when the DHS one won repeatedly, they nerfed DHS repeatedly until the SHS one won.

I would actually be ok if they did this, and then backed it up one step.

DHS should be better, but not overwhelmingly so. There should be pros and cons to using SHS vs DHS, though usually if you have the money and are using lasers, DHS is always a good choice just for the extra engine heatsinks... (Unless you run a lot of heatsinks outside of engine, I suppose.)

I kinda wish they'd done 1.5, as that one makes a little more sense, and would have a better immediate feel.

I do know that DHS are always taken in TT if given the option to. (Exceptions being pure ballistic mechs.)

Also, Clanners favored ballistics, fyi. The downside of ballistics is their tendency to run out of ammo in long engagements, and those don't happen in Trial warfare the Clans use. Ballistics are otherwise simply better than energy weapons in all other respects, the downside is the ammo you have to carry for them. (Possibly aiming, too...)

[Yokaiko]

Sickocrow, on 02 November 2012 - 08:27 PM, said:

If it's done with intent for game balance by changing the DHS value than it's fine. This isn't TT canon, and you can't just drop those values in without serious adjustment.

No body has actually even used the damn things yet, and yet the whingefest is 5 pages long.

The idea that 1.4 is better because 2.0 made common builds heat neutral is ridiculous. EVERY weapon in the game with the exception of the LRM launcher has had its firing rate TRIPLED (or better) over the 10 second heat cycle.

If you are going to make the heat cycle 3 or 4 seconds then 1.4 makes sense, if you are leaving the 10 second cycle, well frankly its ********. You just make it streak and gauss online ......like it is now.

Its ridiculous. WHAT builds don't have to worry about heat? At 1.4hps you STILL can't keep a CN9-AL even CLOSE to heat neutral. So if they were talking about todays common builds, yeah no ****, the common builds are built around a system with punishing heat generation.

Make the DHS TRUE DHS and see what happens. I'm getting tired of the hemogeny quickly and DHS WAS supposed to fix it, now it won't.

[Dodger79]

ManDaisy, on 02 November 2012 - 02:07 PM, said:

You dont want to see a lunchback/ jenner/ cicada/ with true DHS. Zeno you sig is gonna give me a seizure.

Problem is: on these Mechs even the 1.4 hs will work, but now they aren't an option for Assaults anymore. To get a similar heat dissipation on my AS7-RS with 36 SHS i would need roghly 40 crit slots fpr "DHS". 1.4 is ridiculous and even more when you look at the costs for this upgrade. A Jenner will still be _very_ fine with that simply because it has the crit slots for it. On an Atlas on the other hand you simply cannot use any of the advanced tech because of the lack of available crit slots or the unpracticability of the items ("sudden death" xl engines for examples just make you go down a lot faster).

It feels like most changes are in favour for the light Mechs: no collision, lag shield, firing delay for ballistic weapons and PPCs, slow flying LRMs, double armor (this feature i fully understand, but still it favours Lights a lot more then every other class), hit detection (and therefore it is a problem with the available ammo/ton for ballistics which was not doubled to even out the doubled armor), necessity to hold your Lasers on target due to beam duration (another feature i quite like but favours Lights more then others). You can survive longer in a fast Light then in an Atlas and that just feels odd.

Problem is: as we are now in open beta and therefore there won't be anymore wipes and refunds and we are playing with real money now, PGI simply can't change things drastically because players that have invested their money in nowadays superior technology will rage if you nerf their payed items. And these complaints won't be unsubstantiated.

edit: oh, and as a funny side note: PGI and a whole lot of the community defended the current broken heat system with the arrival of double heat sinks and how they will change the game and builds. But now heat build up ist still 3 times higher then in TT, need amount of shs therefore still is 3 times higher and the upcoming dhs will help noone except Lights and Mediums. I have nothing against changes from TT to video game because of balancing and gameplay issues, but these changes have to fit in. You simply can't design dhs this unefficient but make them still use this huge amount of crit slots and make them this expensive.

Edited by Dodger79, 03 November 2012 - 07:07 AM.

[Clay Pigeon]

I really don't understand why PGI wouldn't want DHS to be double. They are expensive. They cost more to repair and replace. People are more likely to spend real money to buy cbill boosts in order to afford buying and using DHS. Does PGI not want revenue?

If they are just a side grade that costs more cbills to buy and maintain, people won't use them.


And then there's the whole post 3050 IS mech and clan mech issue. They are designed around double dissipation. They are going to overheat more than an aws8q on caustic piloted by someone who has never played before.

Edited by Clay Pigeon, 03 November 2012 - 06:28 AM.

[Haeso]

Dodger79, on 03 November 2012 - 05:46 AM, said:

Problem is: on these Mechs even the 1.4 hs will work, but now they aren't an option for Assaults anymore.

Honestly, from everything I can see they just wanted to make lights better and they're going to continue to balance Gauss by using the hardpoint system rather than actually balancing the weapons. The cataphract's double gauss build is going to be king for a very long time once it's out.

[Clay Pigeon]

Vassago Rain, on 03 November 2012 - 05:00 AM, said:

They have a QA team?

I said IGP, not PGI. Bryan posted on the 26th that IGP does their QA.

He also posted that evening that his favorite adult beverage is wine mixed with beer. That's pretty hardcore.

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

Particle Man, on 02 November 2012 - 02:48 PM, said:

How can something thats not even out yet, and is an improvement on what we have now be considered a nerf?

The math is that it's a buff if you only use a certain amount of sinks but a NERF if you stack lots of them. Energy stacking builds are getting the shaft while others are getting buffed.

[Haeso]

Bluten, on 03 November 2012 - 06:27 AM, said:

The math is that it's a buff if you only use a certain amount of sinks but a NERF if you stack lots of them. Energy stacking builds are getting the shaft while others are getting buffed.

Energy stacking on lights will still get a buff. Keeping in line with them wanting to artificially make lights better. Fits with the engine capping as well, no?

[Clay Pigeon]

Haeso, on 03 November 2012 - 06:28 AM, said:

Energy stacking on lights will still get a buff. Keeping in line with them wanting to artificially make lights better. Fits with the engine capping as well, no?

And the no knockdowns, and the lagshields, and the double armor, and the slow LRMS and LBX being terrible.

Edited by Clay Pigeon, 03 November 2012 - 06:32 AM.

[Vermaxx]

Of course I'm not happy, but they don't care.

The price needs to come down. A 1.5mil buy in is terrible for 40% better heatsinks. But they won't, they probably won't even update the tooltip with the patch so people will STILL think they actually double.

The name needs to change, but yours is terrible. Improved Heatsinks or something. I made a snarky fake news bulletin last night where I called them Inner Sphere Improved Heatsinks (IS-IHS), that works, or just IHS, or Modified Heatsinks. Double heatsinks is a misleading title.

And something else occurs to me: Clan participation could require an MC buy in, and include real DHS. I would not be surprised at this point if that is how they "balance" clan membership.

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

If they reduced the doubles to 40% they should reduce the price to 40%...

[Yokaiko]

cache, on 02 November 2012 - 02:11 PM, said:

How the **** can I vote? The patch hasn't dropped so I can't form an educated opinion based on actual in-game experience.

8th grade math?

[Redmond Spiderhammer]

I'm not even sure I care -that- much what the dhs heat multiplyer ends up being. What needs to happen though is a balancing pass on ALL weapons heat, damage, and recycle time once they have settled on something. They will need to look at DPS/ton on similar range weapons, taking into account the amount of HS/ammo required to keep them firing. Of course there will be variance based on the different characteristics of the different weapons, but in general a Gauss Rifle and ER PPC should be able to pump out the same DPS over a short engagement.

[Yokaiko]

Redmond Spiderhammer, on 03 November 2012 - 07:23 AM, said:

I'm not even sure I care -that- much what the dhs heat multiplyer ends up being. What needs to happen though is a balancing pass on ALL weapons heat, damage, and recycle time once they have settled on something. They will need to look at DPS/ton on similar range weapons, taking into account the amount of HS/ammo required to keep them firing. Of course there will be variance based on the different characteristics of the different weapons, but in general a Gauss Rifle and ER PPC should be able to pump out the same DPS over a short engagement.

Right now they will never even be in the ballpark, the ER PPC will overwhelm its steady state cooling capacity with 37 heatsinks in 12 seconds flat, after that its just a race to shutdown, two cycles later. ONE weapon.

......the gauss is merrily firing away, and has the availability of whatever backup weapons are available, within its cooling envelope.

[Cache]

Yokaiko, on 03 November 2012 - 07:16 AM, said:

8th grade math?

8th grade math will tell me how DHS will perform according to my playing style? I'd love to see that formula.

FYI, I don't set a paperweight on the 1-5 keys to fire everything as fast as it cycles. I maneuver and choose my shots carefully. Also, math will not tell you the type of game experience that PGI wishes to give you. (This isn't about what you want, by the way, but what they want to provide.)