534 replies to this topic

[Abrahms]

Wingbreaker, on 04 November 2012 - 07:18 PM, said:

The reason we can't have nice things is the fact that 95% of the player base doesn't understand frontloading and "cost based choice" systems.

You're one them.

/PPCS ARE BAD, AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD

Frontload what? damage? Gauss still does a better job. Only reason PPC ever can right is simply hardpoints. But Id rather fire every 4 seconds with 80 ammo in a Gauss mech than shoot PPCs.

What, if you do 40 damage more (1/3 higher than double gauss) you run insanely hot. It takes over 40 tons of heatsinks to keep it running. 50 damage from 5 PPCs would shut you down for a really, really long time. The gauss mech, though only doing 30 damage, is going to be doing 5-10x your DPS easily. They also dont ever have to wrory about missing because they can simply shoot again. The PPC can fire twice then wait 2 minutes to cool off.

PPC is terrible because each PPC is 37 tons for heat neutrality. The gauss is 20. The gauss also does 50% more damage. The PPC weighs roughly DOUBLE the gauss per point of damage.

[Keifomofutu]

Nacon, on 04 November 2012 - 07:29 PM, said:

Oh look... another of these threads and it has 5 pages so far.

Almost like it's an important issue huh?

[Brazo Izquierdo de Muerte]

well this goes to show you that once again no one has really listend to what the devs have stated numerous times. First off they are not going off the TT rules. They have stated numerus times that they have used them for a starting point and referance only however they have also said there there are things in the TT that just wont work in this game,so because of this they have to adjust accordingly.

As far as weapons you can have your dual gauss builds while i take my dual er ppc and guass build and wipe the floor with your mech and ill do it at farther ranges. i find it very interestind that ppl are haveing a hard time leading their targets. i dont have that problem.

and third ive said it before ill say it again this is a beta. its a true beta. this game is not even 75% done yet. all this stuff is gonna get worked on and smoothed out.

Edited by Alisyn Chaynes, 04 November 2012 - 07:52 PM.

[Wingbreaker]

Abrahms, on 04 November 2012 - 07:30 PM, said:

Frontload what? damage? Gauss still does a better job. Only reason PPC ever can right is simply hardpoints. But Id rather fire every 4 seconds with 80 ammo in a Gauss mech than shoot PPCs.

What, if you do 40 damage more (1/3 higher than double gauss) you run insanely hot. It takes over 40 tons of heatsinks to keep it running. 50 damage from 5 PPCs would shut you down for a really, really long time. The gauss mech, though only doing 30 damage, is going to be doing 5-10x your DPS easily. They also dont ever have to wrory about missing because they can simply shoot again. The PPC can fire twice then wait 2 minutes to cool off.

PPC is terrible because each PPC is 37 tons for heat neutrality. The gauss is 20. The gauss also does 50% more damage. The PPC weighs roughly DOUBLE the gauss per point of damage.

Gauss has ammo.

Gauss rifles explode.

PPCs do not.

Heat neutrality is not a concern for frontloading as your concern is time on target.

Cost and choice, the hallmark of BT.

/Thread

Edited by Wingbreaker, 04 November 2012 - 07:55 PM.

[Abrahms]

Wingbreaker, on 04 November 2012 - 07:55 PM, said:

Gauss has ammo.

Gauss rifles explode.

PPCs do not.

Heat neutrality is not a concern for frontloading as your concern is time on target.

Cost and choice, the hallmark of BT.

/Thread

Well in TT the PPC to keep the same DPS proportion to the gauss weighed the same. Now its more than double.

Derp herp - yeah you have a point but its totally invalid under the current statistics.

SpiralRazor, on 04 November 2012 - 07:02 PM, said:

Dude, you badly need an editor...reading your original post was painful.

Then again, youve said nothing here that i havent been saying since before you started posting on the beta forums bro.

Theres no concession when i said the same thing two weeks after CBT went live when i had enough experience to competently comment.

The only saving grace was the hope of having DHS at 2.0....

Youre the first person to ever have something bad to say about my writing. But I know you already hate me so there is a high level of subjectivity here. At least we can agree that heat is broken.

[Valore]

Alisyn Chaynes, on 04 November 2012 - 07:51 PM, said:

well this goes to show you that once again no one has really listend to what the devs have stated numerous times. First off they are not going off the TT rules. They have stated numerus times that they have used them for a starting point and referance only however they have also said there there are things in the TT that just wont work in this game,so because of this they have to adjust accordingly.

As far as weapons you can have your dual gauss builds while i take my dual er ppc and guass build and wipe the floor with your mech and ill do it at farther ranges. i find it very interestind that ppl are haveing a hard time leading their targets. i dont have that problem.

and third ive said it before ill say it again this is a beta. its a true beta. this game is not even 75% done yet. all this stuff is gonna get worked on and smoothed out.

1. They've tried to mash TT and PGI rules together. Not the wisest choice, and they've done it horribly wrong. A pretty lazy one. They'd have done a far better job coming up with a different system that is influenced heavily by TT.

2. About stuff getting 'worked out', I think its fair to say if you're building a house, and you see that your contractor is building it out of chocolate, you're better served by asking him wtf he's doing, rather than assuming things will 'work out' because its not done yet.

[Stabbitha]

Vlad Ward, on 03 November 2012 - 12:22 PM, said:

A Mech's Maximum DPS is significantly more important than its Heat Neutral DPS in a good number of combat situations, especially for faster Mechs. This "Heat Neutral Tonnage" number is absolutely worthless. No one runs perfectly heat neutral builds aside from Gauss and no one needs to because you're not engaged in combat firing all your weapons for the entire 15 minutes you're in a game.

Until you meet more than one mech...

Besides, Abrahms isn't talking about heat nuetrality as if it's the golden ratio for gameplay here, you can choose to drop heat sinks for greater alpha. The problem is hot weapons are not balanced against cool weapons demonstrated by heat neutrality.

The Awesome you cite typically carries 3x ER PPC's and yet you've got it built with MPLas... If that doesn't light up a few of your synapses then nothing will, you're opting for a cooler weapon that you can keep closer to heat neutral than the original weapons fitted to the mech, ie.

Quote

AWS-9M - The 9M is an upgrade of the Awesome that uses Star League technologies, and was introduced in 3049^[6]. The 'Mech is built around a 320 Hermes XL Fusion engine, giving the 'Mech a top speed of 64.8 km/h. The heat sinks were upgraded to double heat sinks to allow this variant to be rearmed with three Fusigon Longtooth ER PPCs. The ER PPCs are backed up by two Hovertec Streak SRM-2s, a Magna 400P Medium Pulse Laser, and a Diverse Optics Type 10 Small Pulse Laser.

You know exactly what the problem is, which is why you min/max away from it...

Vlad Ward, on 03 November 2012 - 02:13 PM, said:

I could use the 1.4 DHS, but it just makes me sad.

Lol, so the devs step away from canon on DHS and that makes you sad, but heat efficiency errors don't exist?

Vlad Ward, on 03 November 2012 - 02:53 PM, said:

The only Mechs I can think of that should be sitting in the middle of a fight and never moving in/out of the action are Atlases, and that's only because they're unable to. Why, oh, why would anyone choose to sit and trade blows with an enemy for more than a few seconds? Piloting like that is what keeps my KDR padded.

I ride builds that don't require the ability to stand still and fire their weapons for 3 minutes straight because I'm never standing still and firing my weapons for 3 minutes straight. I get in at 85kph, I deal 72 damage to an enemy mech in 5 seconds flat, and I get back out at 85 kph. Am I heat neutral during those 5 seconds? Hell no. Does it matter? Not really. If I'm feeling really confident, I'll even shoot for a third alpha to bring me up to 108 damage in 9 seconds before scooting off.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, y'all.

You continually describe situations that show exactly why the game is broken and not understand that the game is broken... A-mazing...

Vlad Ward, on 03 November 2012 - 03:26 PM, said:

Honestly, I think Laser weapons need a general heat reduction. I'm not saying they're fine as is.

Yes, let's make your laser boat even more OP...

Quote

I just think this "Heat Neutral Tonnage" figure is absolute bollucks and I'm tired of people referencing it as if it means anything.

Put your 9M back to original spec (which was a monster on TT) and let us know how you go okay... X D

And if you're not prepared to do so, please explain why. If I had to guess it would be something like:

-too slow
-too easy to focus
-runs too hot
-doesn't do enough damage
-but heat neutrality as a method of balancing weapons still doesn't matter

Vlad Ward, on 03 November 2012 - 03:59 PM, said:

Fixed for why my laserboat Awesome that I dumped 35,000,000 c-bills into is going to cry buckets of tears on Tuesday.

But according to you, heat neutrality doesn't matter. You'll just run a bit hotter and do less alpha's and spend more time cooling down after flitting around like a butterfly. X D

Since it hasn't sunk in yet, despite the evidence in your own posts that you won't use the very weapons that are most borked by the current setup, I'll say it one more time.

Heat neutrality is not about actual gameplay, it's about the value of a weapon relative to other weapons. It's battlevalue, if you will. It is most grotesquely demonstrated by the fact you don't use the Awesome with it's original 3 ERPPC's but have to spend 35 mill to make it capable with a build that would be ludicrous on TT. Or the fact that most people who own a K2 can't wait to ditch the PPC's for gauss. If I put your mech against any trial mech, I wouldn't be risking anything by betting that your build would win most if not all encounters (assuming both pilots are of equal skill). It demonstrates why heat scaling is broken. End of story.

[NovaFury]

Someone earlier mentioned heat neutrality was inefficient in tabletop, but I have to disagree. A little known fact about mechs and overheating, is that as you climbed the heat scale in battletech, your mech began to perform consistantly worse. 5 points over 0? -1 movement speed. (7/11 is a 'fast' mech like a jenner. At 5 heat the jenner would lose 10kph!) 10 heat? -2 MP.

8 heat? +1 modifer to fire. Most of your weapons became roughly 10% less accurate and 8 isn't even all that much of an overheat. 19 caused an avoid ammo explosion roll, and 30 was automatic shutdown, but by then the MP penalty was -5 come 25 heat. Redlining your mech would have you running 50kph slower than your top speed.

Heat neutrality was important.

[Indoorsman]

I see TT talk.

They said this game would be based on TT...
Based: Use as a point from which (something) can develop
Develop: Grow or cause to grow and become more mature, advanced, or elaborate

I'm a carbon based life form. Can you compare me to carbon? Why compare MWO to TT?

TT is a strategy board game. MWO is a tactical FPS computer game.
Birds evolved from reptiles, yet reptiles have scales and are cold blooded. Birds have feathers and are warm blooded.

Whole different animals. Stop trying to treat them the same.

[Stabbitha]

NovaFury, on 04 November 2012 - 08:59 PM, said:

Someone earlier mentioned heat neutrality was inefficient in tabletop, but I have to disagree. A little known fact about mechs and overheating, is that as you climbed the heat scale in battletech, your mech began to perform consistantly worse. 5 points over 0? -1 movement speed. (7/11 is a 'fast' mech like a jenner. At 5 heat the jenner would lose 10kph!) 10 heat? -2 MP.

8 heat? +1 modifer to fire. Most of your weapons became roughly 10% less accurate and 8 isn't even all that much of an overheat. 19 caused an avoid ammo explosion roll, and 30 was automatic shutdown, but by then the MP penalty was -5 come 25 heat. Redlining your mech would have you running 50kph slower than your top speed.

Heat neutrality was important.

Exactly, but there were also builds that required that overhead to operate. The Panther was one such, a single shot from it's PPC overheated it a fair bit. Firing the PPC every other round was standard to keep the thing from getting catastrophically overheated.

Of course, having no system for penalties to accuracy means that none of that can exist in MWO. If you had a reticule bloom (where weapons would scatter depending on how fast you go or the terrain you are traversing), the laser boat pinpoint alpha strikes would be much less effective as the lasers would not all hit the same location. If this bloom got worse during overheat, the mech would become more inefficient after every salvo. The power of a mixed build with some cool weapons and some high heat big damage weapons would come back in.

The stupid thing is that these things are not new technology. World of Tanks uses a bloom system with an accuracy weighting for weapons over distance that get's worse when you take actions such as moving or if you take damage to certain components. Heat effects could effect targeting/slow your mech/cause ammo explosions and, as you said, heat neutrality would become far more important particularly with a few missed shots under the belt. Scatter systems for LRMs (ie. limited tracking, they'll land on the mech but not with the sort of accuracy they do currently). It would make the game a tad more sedate and require a bit more careful play, so I doubt that it'll happen... ; )

[Protection]

Hey Abrahms,

Would this sound like an appealing possible solution to the ongoing heat issue for you? (tweaking the numbers as needed, of course)

http://mwomercs.com/...lps-trial-mechs

[NovaFury]

Indoorsman, on 04 November 2012 - 09:37 PM, said:

I see TT talk.

Whole different animals. Stop trying to treat them the same.

*Snip*

I'm aware of that. I was just pointing that out. If you bothered to read what I wrote, you'd understand that it actually supports the current system, as MWO has no overheat mechanics beyond shutting down, and therefore you don't need to run heat neutral builds like you should have to.

Edit: So yes, I'm mad double heat sinks aren't double, but there's no penalty for running hot in MWO, so...

Edited by NovaFury, 04 November 2012 - 09:59 PM.

[Lane]

Don't complain about heat or they will look into it and find a long standing bug regarding ppc's, and the fix will make PPC's worse.

Lane

[Indoorsman]

NovaFury, on 04 November 2012 - 09:58 PM, said:

*Snip*

I'm aware of that. I was just pointing that out. If you bothered to read what I wrote, you'd understand that it actually supports the current system, as MWO has no overheat mechanics beyond shutting down, and therefore you don't need to run heat neutral builds like you should have to.

Edit: So yes, I'm mad double heat sinks aren't double, but there's no penalty for running hot in MWO, so...

I wasn't even referring to something you wrote specifically. Just this whole thread in general, and if anyone in particular, Abrahms. He likes comparing this game to TT too much.

[Volthorne]

Oh, look, this thread. Again. Come on Abrahms, this is what, your 9001st attempt? And each time you look like a bigger tool... Here's something for you to mull over...

TT: PPC x 3 = 30 damage, 30 heat, 10 seconds

MWO: PPC x 1 = 30 damage, 27 heat, 10 seconds

LOOK! HEAT IS FIXED! YOU CAN ALL GO HOME NOW. No, seriously. This **** needs to stop.

[Jacmac]

valrond, on 03 November 2012 - 10:34 AM, said:

Thanks for the post again, Abrahams. It looks like PGI doesn't even play the game, because the consequences of their actions are pretty clear: In most custom mechs, certainly all of the mechs that try to be competitive and not try some things, there are just 4 weapons that are being used: Gauss, LRM, SSRM and SL. The rest are either worse, much worse, or simply unusable (like the ER PPC).

I think they do play the game; too much! In fact I think that they play the game so much that they are too good and know every mech and its weak points on sight. They are probably able to direct energy weapons with such accuracy that they pick apart enemy mechs with energy weapon volleys and assume everyone will be able to same. In my opinion, they are confusing the ability to fire energy weapons in a heat neutral situation with actually hitting the target and doing full damage to a targeted area of the enemies chassis. It is one thing to be able to potentially blast an opponent with a 2x or 3x PPC volley, and quite another to actually make the hit. The biggest problem with heat not being dissipated quickly enough is that you stop an energy build from being able to fire for an obscenely extended period, while the only real impedance to a ballistic and/or missile build is running out of ammunition.

By trivializing or even breaking double heatsinks they will be essentially driving everyone into playing ballistic and missile builds with energy relegated to XP grind builds or low end backup weapons on primary builds. The only high power energy you will see on the battlefield will be the Trial mechs, default builds, or builds made by players that don't understand the heat system.

[Jacmac]

Volthorne, on 04 November 2012 - 10:44 PM, said:

TT: PPC x 3 = 30 damage, 30 heat, 10 seconds

MWO: PPC x 1 = 30 damage, 27 heat, 10 seconds

I don't get it. You're saying that in MWO, one PPC generates 30 damage and generates 27 heat every 10 seconds? What about the time it takes to fire three vs firing 1 three times?

Edited by Jacmac, 04 November 2012 - 10:56 PM.

[Indoorsman]

Volthorne, on 04 November 2012 - 10:44 PM, said:

Oh, look, this thread. Again. Come on Abrahms, this is what, your 9001st attempt? And each time you look like a bigger tool... Here's something for you to mull over...

TT: PPC x 3 = 30 damage, 30 heat, 10 seconds

MWO: PPC x 1 = 30 damage, 27 heat, 10 seconds

LOOK! HEAT IS FIXED! YOU CAN ALL GO HOME NOW. No, seriously. This **** needs to stop.

He's just gonna say something along the lines of "You are wrong, Gauss + mathz. Why can't you understand?"

Not that you are 100% right, PPC do generate too much heat IMO. It's not as drastic as he makes it out to be though, good example!

Edited by Indoorsman, 04 November 2012 - 11:06 PM.

[Asatruer]

Indoorsman, on 04 November 2012 - 10:33 PM, said:

Abrahms. He likes comparing this game to TT too much.

Agreed, but a lot of the solutions proposed or problems demonstrated either in this thread or linked threads clearly demonstrate that the problem is not reliant on TT for proving the imbalances nor providing the solution. To blow the thread off as QQing that MWO is not TT enough demonstrates that you either have not bothered to read or comprehend the contents of the thread and supporting threads.

[Inappropriate618]

i think that that mech needs more ballistic hardpoints