98 replies to this topic

[Vassago Rain]

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. 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.

At 1.4, they're useless.
At 2, they have a purpose.

I'm glad you're having in the sinking ship.

[Krivvan]

MCXL, on 02 November 2012 - 04:10 PM, said:

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.

Look at this from the point of view of someone that knows nothing about Battletech. Saying that something is 'meant' to be something is meaningless to those people.

[Murphy7]

Krivvan, on 02 November 2012 - 03:55 PM, said:

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.

Jenners and lights are not whooping up right now because of their heat efficiency, thou true heat efficiency that is increased will make me nastier. Right now they can leg hump with impunity, and run rot through heavies to escape. Quantized motion really shouldn't be an option at that size.

Mechs are across the board way tougher than they should be, which was how the game designers saw the TT game in the 3025 era. A lot of changes, including DHS, were made to increase firepower and the speed of the game, while not really changing the toughness of the individual mechs.

True, in a computer game human aiming is far better than the dice can emulate, but at the same time weapons that were rifle feared and impressive in the lore (large lasers, PPCs), are mostly ignored. It doesn't feel like the Battletech universe this game tries to emulate.

Previous mechwarrior games were able to manage to make those weapons more fearsome, why not MWO?

Edited by Murphy7, 02 November 2012 - 04:15 PM.

[RG Notch]

All of a sudden a lot of people are all for keeping to the TT I see. Oh wait you should ignore TT when it makes my builds worse, but stick to it when it makes my build superior. And for the large weapon people, please it will make smaller weapons even better so it really doesn't change the balance all that much. If you want large weapons balanced, balance large weapons not HS. I get it, folks want to fire as much as possible and not think about heat, why not just say that and stop all the beating around the bush about canon builds or what not. You want to be able to fire all day and not think about it, honesty I could actually respect if not agree with.

[Krivvan]

Vassago Rain, on 02 November 2012 - 04:12 PM, said:

At 1.4, they're useless.
At 2, they have a purpose.

I'm glad you're having in the sinking ship.

At 1.4 they're more effective than SHS when you have less than 7 of them, which many builds do.

RG Notch, on 02 November 2012 - 04:13 PM, said:

it will make smaller weapons even better so it really doesn't change the balance all that much. If you want large weapons balanced, balance large weapons not HS.

This is essentially what I'm trying to say.

Does no one remember the 11 small laser swayback that could fire almost constantly with no downside? How that one mech would be able to solo entire teams of 8?

Unless someone has a bright idea on how to balance out how effective DHS will make everything in the game, I wouldn't support anything more than 1.5 or 1.6 efficiency for DHS.

I'm also happy with the bugged way it is now with engine heat sinks being SHS, but if you must change engine heat sinks then 1.4-1.6 is the way to do it.

Edited by Krivvan, 02 November 2012 - 04:18 PM.

[Murphy7]

Krivvan, on 02 November 2012 - 04:14 PM, said:

Does no one remember the 11 small laser swayback that could fire almost constantly with no downside? How that one mech would be able to solo entire teams of 8?

Engine restrictions, rethinking hardpoints didn't effect that at all, eh? heat sinks were the only things keeping hat in check until the almighty Gaussapult came to save us?

Finding other ways to balance things as an argument can also be used in support of DHS.

Edited by Murphy7, 02 November 2012 - 04:18 PM.

[WardenWolf]

Krivvan, on 02 November 2012 - 04:00 PM, said:

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".

I brought up the potential imbalance of DHS *way* back - before closed beta - on these very forums. Several possibilities were discussed. I would even be okay with the DHS as they are today, where the in-engine heatsinks aren't doubled.

The problem I have, which I gave the math for at the start of this post, is that DHS are going to be *worse* on November 6th than they are today, so much so that mechs which need DHS the most (heavier mechs) are not going to be able to use them. Both of my main Atlas configs are substantially worse off because of this change:

http://mwomercs.com/...40#entry1337340

The only mechs this really helps are the lights and some mediums, who are already better off because of things like lagshield.

[RG Notch]

Krivvan, on 02 November 2012 - 04:14 PM, said:

At 1.4 they're more effective than SHS when you have less than 7 of them, which many builds do.



This is essentially what I'm trying to say.

Does no one remember the 11 small laser swayback that could fire almost constantly with no downside? How that one mech would be able to solo entire teams of 8?

Unless someone has a bright idea on how to balance out how effective DHS will make everything in the game, I wouldn't support anything more than 1.5 or 1.6 efficiency for DHS.

See the key is people remember them and want to play them. Why are OP things popular, precisely because they are OP. People just hope their OP build is more OP than others, and that new players won't be onto the OP builds as fast giving them an edge. No amount of reasoning will stop people from looking for an edge. What's good for the game may not be good for your OP build.

[CocoaJin]

WardenWolf, on 02 November 2012 - 10:38 AM, said:

I run a lot of energy weapons on my mechs, and so had been looking forward to the arrival of double heatsinks. When they got here, I noticed that some of my mechs were better off and some weren't, which it turned out was due to the in-engine heatsinks not having been doubled. PGI said they were looking into it, and now has released this today:

http://mwomercs.com/...31#entry1335931

So the in-engine double heatsinks will now be equal to the added ones, but all DHS will only cool at 1.4x a single heatsink instead of 2x (you know, the definition of 'double'?). This made me want to run some math.

Assuming a 250 engine rating for ease of calculations, as that means 10 in-engine heatsinks both in weight and capacity:

# added DHS / dissipation now / dissipation as of Nov 6 / will new DHS be better?

0 / 10 / 14 / yes
1 / 12 / 15.4 / yes
2 / 14 / 16.8 / yes
3 / 16 / 18.2 / yes
4 / 18 / 19.6 / yes
5 / 20 / 21 / yes
6 / 22 / 22.4 / yes
7 / 24 / 23.8 / no

Any mechs with 7+ added DHS, then, are getting *nerfed* on November 6th. This will directly affect a couple of my designs, so I am quite disappointed. Bryan says they will 'monitor telemetry' (http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__1336260), but I'm not sure how that will help give that they may be forcing folks to simply not use DHS for high-heat builds (which is where they should be most helpful).

Further, as part of the same 'fix' they will be increasing heat on some weapons (Pulse lasers in particular). This will be a double-nerf to one of my designs, and to many others as well I'm sure. I had been hoping that DHS would make other weapons more capable vs the Gauss rifle, to quell some of the complaints about it, but this is taking things the wrong direction.

Devs, please take notice and check out how the math works on this!

A 1% decrease at 7 DHS and we are crying nerf now? So yeah, it affects a few builds...barely. Wendy's missed a few fries when I large sized last night...now I feel robbed?

[Vassago Rain]

Krivvan, on 02 November 2012 - 04:14 PM, said:

At 1.4 they're more effective than SHS when you have less than 7 of them, which many builds do.



This is essentially what I'm trying to say.

Does no one remember the 11 small laser swayback that could fire almost constantly with no downside? How that one mech would be able to solo entire teams of 8?

Unless someone has a bright idea on how to balance out how effective DHS will make everything in the game, I wouldn't support anything more than 1.5 or 1.6 efficiency for DHS.

I'm also happy with the bugged way it is now with engine heat sinks being SHS, but if you must change engine heat sinks then 1.4-1.6 is the way to do it.

Ah, so if we put an artificial cap on the sinkage, then we can limit how often people are even allowed to fire, thereby accomplishing....what?

If someone wants to boat 40 tons of heatsinks, he will. He most certainly won't spend 1,500,000 space bucks on an inferior 'upgrade,' however. So nothing changes, except we have another useless feature in the game.

[Krivvan]

WardenWolf, on 02 November 2012 - 04:19 PM, said:

The problem I have, which I gave the math for at the start of this post, is that DHS are going to be *worse* on November 6th than they are today, so much so that mechs which need DHS the most (heavier mechs) are not going to be able to use them. Both of my main Atlas configs are substantially worse off because of this change:

Perhaps I've never seen it, but I've always considered SHS to be superior to DHS in an Atlas even with the old numbers. I have never been able to have enough crit slots free in an Atlas to make it worthwhile and have DHS more effective than SHS.

And didn't your own math find that you need more than 7 heat sinks to have them be less effective than a SHS? Why is that a problem? The most you can even comfortably fit on an Atlas is 6-8

Edited by Krivvan, 02 November 2012 - 04:24 PM.

[Lootee]

The only reason we are seeing 9, 7, 6 small laser builds in the first place is because the heat system is broken. They are literally the only weapons you can fire repeatedly without overheating with the exception of the no-brainer 15 ton ballistic god emperor of MWO.

If PPCs, ERPPCs, and ER Lasers were actually usable you might start seeing people ditch the bundles of small lasers for something bigger with more range.

Small laser builds in TT were laughable, but in MWO they are one of the only 3-4 viable builds. That should be a giant warning flag in itself.

Edited by PanchoTortilla, 02 November 2012 - 04:24 PM.

[Krivvan]

Vassago Rain, on 02 November 2012 - 04:21 PM, said:

If someone wants to boat 40 tons of heatsinks, he will. He most certainly won't spend 1,500,000 space bucks on an inferior 'upgrade,' however. So nothing changes, except we have another useless feature in the game.

But I'm basing most of my argument on the fact that the math doesn't find DHS useless in all situations. It finds it useless when you use more than 7 of them. If one can gain any sort of advantage by getting them in some situation, someone will get them and they won't be useless, even if niche.

What I want is a system where both SHS and DHS have situations where they can be more effective than the other.

Edited by Krivvan, 02 November 2012 - 04:27 PM.

[Xetelian]

http://www.sarna.net...uble_heat_sinks



Description

Double Heat Sinks, often abbreviated DHS and colloquially also referred to as Freezers throughout the Inner Sphere after their NAIS codename^[1], operate in much the same way and for the same purpose as standard heat sinks. The difference is that a double heat sink offers twice the heat dissipation capacity of a standard heat sink, for the same mass (one ton).
Their drawback is that they are much bulkier than a standard heat sink (unless integrated into a fusion engine).
The advanced Clan version twice the size of a standard heat sink; Star League era double heat sinks and those later (re-)developed by the Inner Sphere are three times as bulky as a standard heat sink.
Also, double heat sinks are normally incompatible with standard heat sinks. A given unit must therefore be equipped exclusively with either standard or double heat sinks, though exceptions are known.^[2]
The benefits of doubled heat dissipation capacity usually outweigh the drawbacks and by 3058 almost every 'Mech model was equipped or retrofitted with double heat sinks.

[Vermaxx]

I never voted for differing from tabletop rules. The large laser is unbalanced right now, and is a serious contender against the use of a PPC. This should not be.

They've got a length of match in mind I think. They have a figure for how long it should take you to kill someone and move on. DHS interrupted that. Perhaps their system isn't really set up for the faster turnover we would see.

Or, they're trying to make lights better. They have said they want all mechs to be competitive with any other weight class, and now smaller mechs can hit the optimum number of DHS easily. A light can shoot more often than an assault, balancing the assault's higher alpha.

I also wish people would stop using the 250 as the 'default' engine when a lot of mechs run below that. TRUE tabletop rules have no clear default engine, because the mechs move in hex measurements and therefore engine sizes increase dramatically from mech to mech while speed remains the same.

Why wasn't that made an issue? Engines were a problem, so they got arbitrary caps instead of just using tabletop increase rules. There wouldn't need to be a cap if you had to go from a 200 to a 300 as one step increase in your Atlas, or from a 200 to a 250 to a 300 in your Hunchback, or a 195 to a 260 to a 325 in your Catapult.

Sorry I messed up the Catpult numbers.

Edited by Vermaxx, 02 November 2012 - 04:34 PM.

[Xetelian]

Call them upgraded heat sinks and leave it at 1.4, they are not double heat sinks literally.

[Galaxy Drifter]

Thontor, on 02 November 2012 - 12:05 PM, said:

They aren't nerfing lasers. They are fixing a bug that caused lasers with a duration of less than one second to generate less heat than intended.

This effects regular small lasers, and all pulse lasers. Regular medium and large lasers, and ER large lasers will be unaffected since they have a one second duration.

If it turns out, after fixing this bug, that the effected lasers are now too hot, their heat will be adjusted accordingly.

But regular lasers are also bugged. Try it out yourself.

Try firing 2 MLas and note how much heat is generated. Now try it with 4 SLas (should be about the same amount of heat)

The 2 MLas generate way more heat. This happened on the patch that added DHS.

[WardenWolf]

CocoaJin, on 02 November 2012 - 04:21 PM, said:

A 1% decrease at 7 DHS and we are crying nerf now? So yeah, it affects a few builds...barely. Wendy's missed a few fries when I large sized last night...now I feel robbed?

1% reduction at 7 DHS... but it keeps getting worse. The main mech I run now, with 23 of today's "bugged" DHS, will be measurably worse at the next patch. And this is their response to our complaints that DHS were not working *well enough*... to nerf them.

Krivvan, on 02 November 2012 - 04:22 PM, said:

Perhaps I've never seen it, but I've always considered SHS to be superior to DHS in an Atlas even with the old numbers. I have never been able to have enough crit slots free in an Atlas to make it worthwhile and have DHS more effective than SHS.

And didn't your own math find that you need more than 7 heat sinks to have them be less effective than a SHS? Why is that a problem? The most you can even comfortably fit on an Atlas is 6-8

Please check out my post specifically showing my configs, and the problems with them using singles vs current doubles vs how they are going to be (even worse):

http://mwomercs.com/...40#entry1337340

[Vermaxx]

Elddar, on 02 November 2012 - 04:39 PM, said:

But regular lasers are also bugged. Try it out yourself.

Try firing 2 MLas and note how much heat is generated. Now try it with 4 SLas (should be about the same amount of heat)

The 2 MLas generate way more heat. This happened on the patch that added DHS.

No wai, I'm going to try that.

[QuantumButler]

Dammit PGI, I want to have faith in you, but all your awful decisions are making it impossible.