13 replies to this topic

[Squid von Torgar]

Guys, the new DHS "fix" (1.4 Heat dissipation) is to my mind not the way to go.

I know Bryan posted that he would like feedback on how it will affect our particular builds, so I am doing so.

I think the Awesome is a very good mech to highlight in this discussion as it relies very heavily on HS (Be they SHS or DHS).

Firstly let me point out that I take the Awesome (Either 8Q or 9M) a lot, i have unlocked master and put some serious hours (not to mention MC) into piloting these mechs.

With the current system and the upcomming fix I have the equivalent of 28 SHS.

If I use the ER PPCs that come as standard in the 9M I can fire them once. With the Pilot Lab heat bonuses unlocked and doubled that 1st shot takes me to 62% heat on caustic. This means that I have to wait a further 12 seconds for that heat to to be sunk before I can fire again.

12 seconds is a eternity in MWO and this effectively means that the ER PPC 9M isnt a competitive build (despite its C-bill cost).

During that time I can be shot by a dual gauss cat 3 times (for 90 damage) or suffer almost 3 salvos from a Awesome 8T with dual LRM 15s for again 90 damage. Of course I can try to find cover and limit this, but it highlights I think that taking ER PPCs is not a good idea if you want to remain competitive.

Even with DHS it just runs far to hot to use its ER PPCs. (Even with fully working DHS it would still be difficulty to avoid overheating and maintain a good DPS, but I believe it would be manageable provided the player had the skill to do so).

Due to this I run my 9M with Standard PPCs. Whilst being alot better, it still requires patience, skill and judgement to use effectively. Overheats are still common, and obviously you suffer from the minimum range and reduced maximum range inherent in the standard PPC. I still have to wait 7.5 seconds before I can fire them again, but I can get off 3 salvos before I have to wait for them to cool.

I understand that Gauss requires ammo, but given it generates hardly any heat, it is easy to offset the weight of heat sinks and take enough ammo for the entire match.

As it stands the only hope to make the PPC a weapon that can compete with Gauss, LRMs and other Ballistics was to allow certain builds to fire them. That's what the 8Q and 9M are designed to do. Currently and with the new DHS Fix the wise player would do well to avoid taking the variants altogether as they simply don't work as intended. They cannot compete with other weapons and make them a poor choice.

Having invested a fair bit of time and MC into these variants, I hope you can understand my disappointment. There seems to be a large unbalance compared to other builds.

So please I implore you, either raise the efficiency of DHS so that these builds actually can become effective (my preferred solution) or lower the heat generation of both the PPC and ER PPC so it can take its rightful place as a competitive weapon in MWO.

To other players reading this, please post your experiences regarding DHS and your builds, but lets try to keep it reasonable so that PGI will take note.

Edited by Squid von Torgar, 03 November 2012 - 04:35 AM.

[Monkey Bone]

Imo if they really are so keen on "fixing" dhs, they just should have left them alone (engine heatsinks are singles always).

[Vassago Rain]

Jules Gonzales, on 03 November 2012 - 04:14 AM, said:

Imo if they really are so keen on "fixing" dhs, they just should have left them alone (engine heatsinks are singles always).

Can't they just come out and say 'we were only pretending?' I want to play a game, not fight them because they're trying to 'balance' something that doesn't need balancing.

[Monkey Bone]

Vassago Rain, on 03 November 2012 - 04:17 AM, said:

Can't they just come out and say 'we were only pretending?' I want to play a game, not fight them because they're trying to 'balance' something that doesn't need balancing.

I really do love it how this "fix" was actually a ******* nerf.

[Draco Argentum]

Welcome to months ago. We had the maths plotted out showing that the AWS-8Q was useless so far back but PGI just ignored it and the fanbois kept saying l2p. Suprise suprise, a closed beta full of people unwilling to criticise the game means now we're in an open beta with glaring issues.

Heat, matchmaking, trial grind, economy. All of it was explained in excruciating detail by people who love Mechwarrior and wanted this game to succeed. Yest every thread was drowned in fanboi posts. Well now everyone can sign up and make an account and the fanbois are outnumbered. We can only hope that PGI can fix all these problems before its too late.

[Ghosth]

The problem is Vassago is that it did need balancing. Every time you try to talk about large energy weapons and overheat some people say "well don't shoot so often" That is the road of death. That Gauss sniper isn't shooting less often, no, he has virtually no heat to worry about. That light mech with small lasers nibbling at your ankle can shoot and run away. How does an Awesome run away to cool down?

In a nutshell, if you build a mech so that it can shoot for example a large laser endlessly, it is not as efficient as the same build that fires more large lasers. The ultimate would be your mech shutting down from heat "after" it fired the salvo that killed the enemy. That gives you the most bang for the buck. That lets you kill most efficiently.

But a 3 PPC awesome can't even fire 1 of them without overheating. Because heat was never balanced. They left to last what they should have done first.

And now they've grown to like it like that, so they don't want to balance heat at all.
And now they don't want to give us double heat sinks. We are going to get mutant bastardized heat sinks that take 3 crit spaces, weight 1 ton but only dissipate 1.4 heat.

That's wrong, that is the titanic setting sail thinking it is all great. But that flaw will catch up with it.

[Squid von Torgar]

Guys i dont want yet another locked thread. Just provide more examples as to why the 1.4 fix actually makes the game worse

[Draco Argentum]

Squid von Torgar, on 03 November 2012 - 04:37 AM, said:

Guys i dont want yet another locked thread. Just provide more examples as to why the 1.4 fix actually makes the game worse

Sure thing. I'll post some cannon assault mech variants that won't work with 1.4HS

http://www.sarna.net...ult_BattleMechs All of the ones here that use DHS won't work.

[Squid von Torgar]

What also gets me is that when Paul mentioned that they would be testing DHS (after the players told them they were broken) I sent a email in to ask that they be fully implemented.

Quote

Dear PGI,
As you are well aware, the implementation of DHS was a feature a large part of the community was looking forward to.
Because of the increased rate of fire of weapons as compared to cannon the current heat system means that several cannon builds are at a disadvantage compared to others.
DHS (if working properly) would at least help to balance the situation slightly.
I appreciate that DHS aren't working properly at the moment and the situation is being reviewed. But I am concerned that there is any question of not fixing them.
Firstly I find it surprising that the issue was missed in the first place. It took us (our unit) about ten minutes of play to discover they weren't working as described. Ok no worries you have agreed they are broken, these things happen I guess. I am also a bit surprised that we will have to wait until the 6th November for any forth coming fix. Surely this is worthy of a unscheduled hotfix?
Now you have told us (thank you for keeping us in the loop) that final implementation (of DHS contained in the engine) is under review and not guaranteed to make it to release. I find this shocking, considering their importance to both cannon and from a gameplay perspective.
Without testing I already know what the results of fully working HS will be. You will reduce my cool down times by 1/3 compared to SHS. That gives me roughly a 2 second decrease in cool down time (Of around 7 seconds currently). I really cant see that being a game breaker.
You gave us the Awesome 9M. There currently is no reason to use this mech with its cannon load out of ER PPCs. Currently, even with its double heat sinks (which effectively are working the same as my 8Q Awesome with 29 HS) it is pretty useless as it simply runs too hot. I can do more damage by reducing the amount of ER PPCs it carries or swapping them out for standard PPCs.
The entire point of DHS is to allow mechs to use high heat weaponry. If you decide not to implement them fully there are dozens of builds which are never going to be competitive. Further it leaves less options open to us regarding our own builds and further reinforces already controversial builds like the Gaussapult.
If you decide not to fix the issue, DHS are not fit for purpose. You may as well remove them from the game altogether as only a fool would contend with the cost to fit and repair them as compared to SHS. Further, how do you plan to implement clan DHS in the future if under the current system the majority carried by a mech are just SHS? Again this means a large amount of cannon builds just wont be worth taking in MWO.
So make the right call, its very important that we have the options to field weapons other than the Gauss Rifle in a competitive arena.
Best Regards
Squid

I got this response

Quote

Hello Squid von Torgar,
Thank you for contacting the MechWarrior® Online™ support.
We understand your concerns about the double heat sinks, and are working on finding a way to have them work properly in the game. I have not heard any talk on my end about removing them outright, so if they disappear, it would only be temporary while we locate and fix the problem associated with them, but even that is a worst-case scenario.
In short, as far as I'm aware, there are no plans to remove them, and hopefully they'll be working properly soon.
Regards,
Zero

Note I never mentioned their removal but talked about them not being fully implemented. Its seems that even within PGI there is confusion as to how they should work/what they should do.

Edited by Squid von Torgar, 03 November 2012 - 05:42 AM.

[Redshift2k5]

It's much easier to tune them up than to nerf them down.

Wait for the new patch, try it out for a week, and see how it goes.

[Haeso]

Squid von Torgar, on 03 November 2012 - 04:37 AM, said:

Guys i dont want yet another locked thread. Just provide more examples as to why the 1.4 fix actually makes the game worse

Should I just copy and paste every mathematical explanation that shows it's a nerf to any Heavy to Assault laser build and just keeps the status quo of go gauss or go home?

The only reason ACs aren't on top is because of the firing delay, when they fix that they'll be right there next to the gauss dominating anyone who DARES put more lasers on their 'Mech than the engine heatsinks can handle.

I cannot wait for the Cataphract's double gauss to be in-game. The extra 5 tons on top of the K2 let it go full armor and throw in some heat generating weapons to use it's engine sinks. The cataphract in the 1.4 DHS world will be king solely because of the hardpoint system, with DHS the required sinks to go heat neutral made an even peace between large lasers/to a lesser extent PPCs and AC/Gauss weapons.

[Squid von Torgar]

Agreed, with the 1.4 Fix they have alienated an entire weapon class and the players that would like to use it. We arent asking for an advantage just an even playing field.

[Ghosth]

Squid they have alienated Chassis classes not just weapon classes.

Any mech that has primarily Energy weapons is going to be screwed. The bigger it is, and the bigger the weapons it carried the worse it is going to be.

[vettie]

I can tell that you guys are reasonable, level headed players. I can appreciate your concerns, even more so, I mostly agree with you and definitely respect your opinion / concerns and the way you went about the complaint / request for info / change.

To play the Devil's advocate in this situation, I would offer a couple of statements. I am NOT trying to argue your points (as I mostly agree with with them) and I do believe the implementation of the DHS is incorrect (even prior to PGI saying 'we're looking into it...')

So my statements

1 - just a few days ago (less than week) we ONLY had single heat sinks and we had to work with it by finding workable configs or alternate firing solutions. So now we have DHS and the Devs have made it public they are flawed and are working a solution. So why not wait until the solution is released? We waited many months prior as we had ONLY singles, right?

2 - alternate firing solutions is the second answer to the current situation. Do you have to alpha your shots? We already know that ERPPCs are one of, if not THE most heat generating weapon in the game. 3 in one salvo? Yes you are going to get hot. Then firing 2 to 3 of those salvos? Shut down from over heat? That should not be a surprise. Just because a Mech comes from the 'factory' (read as stock variant) with 3 ERPPCs or 8 medium lasers or insert multiple of any energy weapon here, does not mean it was designed to continuously fire all those weapons and not run the risk over overheating.

Now my opinion, for what it is worth. Overall, disregarding the DHS issue (as I mentioned, less than 1 week ago we did not have them) I think the heat of most all weapons, less the gauss and the machine guns, is on the high side. Simply put, i think, even tho very close to TT, the weapons are too hot.

Why? Simple. In TT (basic at least anyway), ALL weapons were fired during a 'fire' phase. Heat was bled off in the 'heat phase'. How much, if any, heat left over was what you had to deal with during the next 'turn'. Knowing you had some amount of heat, you fired accordingly (assuming you had targets and were in range). this continued until someone was dead, heat cooled off, mech shut down or whatever...

In the video version, you are basically live firing, not doing it in phases.So the heat generation vs dissipation is much great simply because the 'phases' are all jammed into 'instant application', making it appear as tho you are running hot (and you are) because there are no 'phases'. You know add heat remove heat happens simultaneously. So personally, I think that they (the Devs) should take a long hard look at the overall heat application within the game. I dont think it needs a huge nerf, but i do think it needs a tweak. In furball battles, being shut down more than getting a shot in and maneuvering to avoid shots just isnt that much fun. (again alternate firing solutions help but not always enough).

Good post OP