98 replies to this topic

[Lightfoot]

TigridMorte, on 02 November 2012 - 02:00 PM, said:

unless you are firing a gauss. gosh how balanced.
Gauss warriors online w some LRM, lasers (especially pulse) need not apply.

Dang right! Nerf the Gauss and the AC20 too. I want the weapon recharges restored to TT for all weapons because they do too much DPS in the same way 2.0 DHS allows Energy weapons to do too much DPS. Well, isn't it the same thing? I mean really.

I have been playing MWO with Ballistics being the obviously OP'd damage-kings because they are unaffected by overheating from firing at double their normal rate. Getting killed by dual-Gauss in 4 seconds, dual UAC5 in 8 seconds, dual AC20 in one shot. And all this is A-Okay, but fixing Energy weapons so they do the same is too beaucoup? Really? Don't you see how this destroys the balance between the three weapon types?

Anyway, I just wanted to make a point. Hopefully you can fix DHS in some way that energy configs are fixed as well as the 'mechs that don't need DHS are being fixed.

[Lightfoot]

Thontor, on 02 November 2012 - 02:23 PM, said:

the AWS-9M is straight out of the TRO.. it comes with a 320XL and actually has 8 heat sinks outside of the engine. There was not cheating up of anything.

Except it doesn't work now and if what they are saying about the change to DHS is as it is stated, the AWS-9M will shut down after the second shot for 30 seconds. Meaning, it doesn't work.

[Lightfoot]

Thontor, on 02 November 2012 - 02:37 PM, said:

i don't disagree

but your post implied they changed the mech from it's canon TRO loadout to "cheat up the number of DHS"

Didn't have time to check, but it's weird that the AWS-9M can't run 3 ERPPCs with all those Doubles and a 320XL to fit two more into the engine.

Edited by Lightfoot, 02 November 2012 - 02:40 PM.

[Thuzel]

Bubba Wilkins, on 02 November 2012 - 10:58 AM, said:

Yes, we are all aware of that opinion. We aren't buying it.

Just like we didn't buy it the first time they implemented DHS.
Just like we didn't accept that the build was ready for OB the first time.

Well said. From the sound of things, it looks like the play testers don't typically use or like energy builds. That would also explain why they entirely missed the EHS bug the first time around.

[Culler]

Why don't they just let us test the DHS in their full 2.0 implementation instead of essentially preserving the current poor balance of DHS? Most mechs have heat trouble (excepting gauss builds) and the current changes changes most of them to be roughly as efficient as they were before, which was a problem. Hot builds get somewhat worse with the 1.4 change and builds that run minimum heat sinks got somewhat better.

What we actually wanted was for the issue to get better. This arbitrary change is frustrating from a player perspective, and just cements gauss as king.

[Red Chaos1]

Krivvan, on 02 November 2012 - 10:42 AM, said:

But isn't over 7 DHS already FAR more DHS than most even put on any mechs? It still makes sense to use DHS when you have the critical slots to spare but not the tonnage. Which is the entire point of them. They shouldn't be outright better than single heat sinks.

I mean, single heat sinks were already better than double heat sinks on an Atlas, but people didn't complain about that.

This just boggles me. The entire effing point of DHS is that they are absolutely better than single heatsinks, at the cost of triple the crit slots taken.

As to the whole nerf, seriously PGI, you're being incredibly hamfisted with this. I stopped playing Diablo 3 because they were doing the same stupid things in regards to bandaid after bandaid further breaking the game. Stop it! You aren't balancing anything, The balance isn't broken.

Edited by Red Chaos1, 02 November 2012 - 03:07 PM.

[Cochise]

I honestly do not use them because it just does not seem worth it anymore, but, I am cool with them nerfing (balancing) DHS because OMGWTFBBQPWNMOBILE laser boats are something I don't think any of us want.

[Balsover]

I remember hearing 2 months ago from some testers, "just wait for DHS, they will fix the heat issue, no need to complain right now". Ha!

[Jacmac]

ScatCat54, on 02 November 2012 - 01:44 PM, said:

Forgive me if I'm missing something as I'm unable to play yet. Aren't you still getting better heat dissipation with your 1.4 rated doubles vs. the singles. You would be comparing 18 singles to 23.8 doubles as in your table on the first page. It's just that above that number you start getting a multiplier of less than 1.4 for additional DHS

What you don't know yet is that you can't fit them in. If you could fit the same number of doubles as singles in a mech build, then yes, you're getting 40% better heat dissipation with the doubles. This isn't possible at all in some mechs and is unpractical in all of them. There is a point at which your only option for better heat dissipation is to use singles, basically because of the space constraint issues.

The point of running doubles is that you trade space for heat efficiency and tonnage, theoretically you run less heat sink tonnage and get more weight capacity for armor or heavier weapons. Thier attempt at balance is misguided and not well thought out. Nobody is going to bother playing an energy heavy build and the mech variants that are heavy on energy are not going to appear on the battlefield (excepting those that are piloted by the ignorant or those that don't mind low sustained DPS) until the devs get it right.

Edited by Jacmac, 02 November 2012 - 03:11 PM.

[Fiona Marshe]

Don't forget that heat dissipation is only part of the equation; heat cap still equals 30+HS (regardless of type).

250 engine (10SHS) + 8SHS = 1.80 heat/second with 48 heat cap
250 engine (10DSH) + 3DSH = 1.82 heat/second with 40 heat cap

That heat cap difference makes a big difference to your sustained fire capacity over the course of a fight.

[Lootee]

Red Chaos1, on 02 November 2012 - 02:59 PM, said:

This just boggles me. The entire effing point of DHS is that they are absolutely better than single heatsinks, at the cost of triple the crit slots taken.

As to the whole nerf, seriously PGI, you're being incredibly hamfisted with this. I stopped playing Diablo 3 because they were doing the same stupid things in regards to bandaid after bandaid further breaking the game. Stop it! You aren't balancing anything, The balance isn't broken.

The balance is and has been broken. And they're going to break it more. Large, high heat energy weapons were already next to useless. Now the only possible way they could conceivably become useful is removed. It looks like small energy weapons are going to join the larger ones in the trash bin soon too when their heat generation is increased.

Welcome to gauss rifle and LRM online, almost but not quite entirely unlike Battletech. Where you have dozens of different weapons, but only 2 worth using.

Edited by PanchoTortilla, 02 November 2012 - 03:33 PM.

[Red Chaos1]

PanchoTortilla, on 02 November 2012 - 03:28 PM, said:

The balance is and has been broken. And they're going to break it more. Large, high heat energy weapons were already next to useless. Now the only possible way they could conceivably become useful is removed. It looks like small energy weapons are all going to join the larger ones in the trash bin soon too.

Well, to clarify, what I mean by saying the balance isn't broken is all these folks crying rivers over laserboats are crying needlessly. Laserboats aren't all that overpowered really, they have plenty of drawbacks, namely heat and placement. Even with scads of DHS, laserboats will overheat and shut down if not well managed. They're easily neutered by precise removal of arms and torsos, both reducing the number of lasers and the number of heatsinks available, making them overheat faster. People get way too narrow-minded and look only at damage outputs and then cry OMG OVERPWERED!!!11 without looking at the rest of the picture.

Quote

Welcome to gauss rifle and LRM online, vaguely almost but not quite completely unlike the Battletech universe. Where you have dozens of different weapons, but only 2 worth using.

Sadly this seems to be the case and it makes me sad. If things keep up I'll just go back to WoT or play any number of other games I have. I really want this game to be great, but right now it doesn't seem headed that way.

[Cid]

i really dont like how the devs are handling the DHS problem 8(

and get rid of the extra payment when switching back and forth and SH and DHS, if i paid that damn 1.5mio once let me change however i choose for free.

and for the love of god, let me try out any builds in mechlab i want to try without paying inbetween for the upgrades.

and i dont buy that crap about the bug they found out about heat calculation, it smells more like a hidden laserboat double nerf to me.
with the firing delay and the horrible netcode it is really rough to get a good AC hit in close quarter combat, especially if you have a bad ping (like +130), so instead i went for laserbuilds which will now generate even more heat i am not able to manage efficiently.

[Hikyuu]

Urza Mechwalker, on 02 November 2012 - 02:15 PM, said:

They SHOULD be outright better. that is why they cost a fortune for a tech 2 module that is supposed to be compeltely superior to the tech 1.

"tech 1" is not the way to refer to the ubiquitous heatsink. Mechwarrior, unlike every other game you play, is a cost/benefit/disadvantage system. in that regard. Heatsinks should have just as much viability as DHS, it should depend on the mech, the playstyle, and how you run your ****.

consider this, DHS are made for mechs that may not be able to afford the tonnage for necessary heat dispersion. it is not meant to replace Heatsinks at all (else every mech in history would have used them!). they are just more effective, much more complex, and bulkier heatsinks that are also lighter.

[Lootee]

Hikyuu, on 02 November 2012 - 03:40 PM, said:

it is not meant to replace Heatsinks at all (else every mech in history would have used them!). they are just more effective, much more complex, and bulkier heatsinks that are also lighter.

At least 80% of all mechs in every TRO after 3050 used them. The ones that didn't either were scouts without very many weapons to begin with, ran mostly ballistic weapons, skimped on cost, were resurrected 2750 designs, or were huge assault mechs that could afford to spend 25 tons on nothing but heatsinks.

The TROs and Great House source books also talk about field kits to upgrade HS on older mechs and the House Kurita book specifically mentions some regiments' family heirloom mechs all had DHS retrofitted onto them as well.

Sounds pretty ubiquitous to me.

Edited by PanchoTortilla, 02 November 2012 - 04:16 PM.

[Krivvan]

Urza Mechwalker, on 02 November 2012 - 02:15 PM, said:

They SHOULD be outright better. that is why they cost a fortune for a tech 2 module that is supposed to be compeltely superior to the tech 1.

And to anyone who doesn't know anything about the canon just sees this argument as "this strange dichotomy should happen because canon that I don't care about says so".

At this point I almost want them to just set DHS as 2.0 for a week. Most light and medium mechs will have almost double the heat efficiency they do now. All mechs can have a cheap 10 heat sink increase to their designs with almost no downside. This doesn't make larger energy weapons viable, this makes all weapons that are balanced by heat ridiculously good from small lasers all the way up to ER PPCs.

People thinking small laser Jenners are bad? Now imagine if they never needed to stop firing ever.

Think a Gaussapult is bad? How about a Gaussapult with medium lasers that never need to stop firing with no need to waste tonnage on heat sinks.

Edited by Krivvan, 02 November 2012 - 03:58 PM.

[Saevus]

I was laughing at how easy my builds would be with 2.0 DHS. I am glad they realized this balance issue ahead of time. I am a bit peeved about them finding a bug in lasers, since they are already too hot in reasonable numbers, but that is life. the fact is, 2.0 was going to make every build I run so heat efficient I could set a brick on my fire keys and just drive around. At 1.4, you will gain heat efficiency equal to 4 tons of HS just off your engine (over a 250) and you get to save some tonnage in mechs with extra crit slots. I see no issue here. They play tested it, saw exactly what any ***** could see (2.0 HS were gonna be hilarious on things like 4 Ps) they changed the heat dynamics to lasers early on because some builds were too good, now we maintain the integrity of that system by offering something that is a clear upgrade, without negating SH builds in some circumstances. Bravo for not dropping some TT value on us and then fixing it later, it will be easier for them to adjust the ratio up from here, because then it's a buff not a nerf to all the whiners (I don't think they will, this number makes sense). The truth is though, you'll get used to it, this is a rare moment of game mechanic forethought, and I applaud it.

[Murphy7]

RG Notch, on 02 November 2012 - 11:02 AM, said:

Exactly, some folks don't want to bother with heat management.

It's not that, or it is not that for everyone.

I'd like to see large energy builds actually be competitive, which means they need either a significant reduction in their per volley heat, or a mechanism to increase heat dissipation (DHS, for example) to help balance them. It also has the effect of making energy boat capable mechs, such as the Hunchback 4P and Awesome 9? More effective as well. I think the correction to pulse laser heat generation would help mitigate that a bit, and maps such as caustic that allow for longer range engagements could mitigate further by making the range limitation more of a liability in certain situations.

[Krivvan]

Murphy7, on 02 November 2012 - 03:58 PM, said:

It's not that, or it is not that for everyone.

I'd like to see large energy builds actually be competitive, which means they need either a significant reduction in their per volley heat, or a mechanism to increase heat dissipation (DHS, for example) to help balance them. It also has the effect of making energy boat capable mechs, such as the Hunchback 4P and Awesome 9? More effective as well. I think the correction to pulse laser heat generation would help mitigate that a bit, and maps such as caustic that allow for longer range engagements could mitigate further by making the range limitation more of a liability in certain situations.

If this is the only reason you want DHS, then why not just slightly reduce heat on those large energy weapons? A better DHS doesn't just mean making larger energy weapons better, it means making every weapon in the game better. And larger energy weapons won't always benefit more than smaller energy weapons. Better heat sinks means you can boat more small lasers and fire them more often.

A 2.0 DHS means you can use large lasers on your Swayback yes. But it also means that those 9 medium laser Swayback builds are now completely viable and better in most ways than any usage of large lasers.

The only things that don't benefit are things that wouldn't see a significant net change in heat, but very few builds will have that occurring.

Saevus, on 02 November 2012 - 03:56 PM, said:

I was laughing at how easy my builds would be with 2.0 DHS. I am glad they realized this balance issue ahead of time.

So many people noticed this before too and wanted DHS to be worsened somehow. Once it happens, everyone blows up mostly because of canon and "the name doesn't make sense".

Edited by Krivvan, 02 November 2012 - 04:03 PM.

[MCXL]

Hikyuu, on 02 November 2012 - 03:40 PM, said:

consider this, DHS are made for mechs that may not be able to afford the tonnage for necessary heat dispersion. it is not meant to replace Heatsinks at all (else every mech in history would have used them!).

No, you are wrong, DHS are a "recent invention" as in they didn't have DHS 2500-3000. mechs from post clan TRO's use DHS a lot, in fact I think that there is something that says but for cost just about every mech would be upgraded.

Oh, and they are meant to be 100% a upgrade, not a sidegrade. They do have some disadvantages, but they are not a equivalent item.

EDIT: Naysayers keep pointing out these things like "Gausscats with MED LAZERS" A gausscat would be giving up 20 Ammo to mount those lasers, and some of them do that NOW, DHS doesn't effect that. Med Lasers are supposed to be a sort of medium range backup weapon, not strong not weak. With current heat numbers they are the overall king of the battlefield, and the primary source of direct fire damage.

That ******* sucks.

I'm a strong advocate of making heat dissapation double what it is aross the board, so singles 2.0/10 Sec, Doubles 4.0/10

You know why? Because MWO mechs are generating 3-5 times the heat in a 10 second period of what TT mechs are. I never played TT, but I know if my mech overheated in ONE TURN OF PLAY on an alpha strike, I never would come back, because that's ******* stupid.

Heat management is fine, but there is just no way to manage the heat from a stock Awesome 8, or 9 right now, unless you only shoot one PPC, (and even then you overheat). Why mount the other PPCs? Why take PPC's at all or any other high heat weapon for that matter.

Edited by MCXL, 02 November 2012 - 04:17 PM.