534 replies to this topic

[Indoorsman]

MustrumRidcully, on 03 December 2012 - 01:00 AM, said:

Yeah, I think that's how my 4 PPC experiment went as well. Did you enjoy it more than I did?

lol, it's not a very enjoyable loadout but it certainly can blow stuff up. If they only reduce heat generation I think PPC might become OP :-p

[Abrahms]

Indoorsman, on 02 December 2012 - 02:49 PM, said:

Well I've never tried 4PPC, just 4PPC AND Gauss

Note that with 2 PPCs and 14 more heatsinks (replacing their tonnage with that - or even just upping your engine and filling every crit slot if you have limited space) that your DPS would be a lot higher.

Ive tried the 2xPPC and 1xGauss Atlas, which was a 35 dmg alpha instead of 55, but I fired more than twice as often as you were. Sure, each alpha hit for a little less, but my end-game dmg was probably 2-3x as high.

[Indoorsman]

Abrahms, on 09 December 2012 - 05:43 PM, said:

Note that with 2 PPCs and 14 more heatsinks (replacing their tonnage with that - or even just upping your engine and filling every crit slot if you have limited space) that your DPS would be a lot higher.

Ive tried the 2xPPC and 1xGauss Atlas, which was a 35 dmg alpha instead of 55, but I fired more than twice as often as you were. Sure, each alpha hit for a little less, but my end-game dmg was probably 2-3x as high.

I did over 800 damage, doubt you'd do twice that :-o. Also doing 2-3x damage requires more opportunities to shoot. I think it wouldn't do as well even though it'd run cooler.

Edited by Indoorsman, 09 December 2012 - 05:59 PM.

[Mongoose Trueborn]

Abrahms, on 03 November 2012 - 11:30 AM, said:

If regular Heatsinks were 1.5 and double were like, 2.4, all the weapons would be a lot more balanced. The only other route is ditching TT

The devs had said they are not following TT and simply used it as a baseline. How do you get 1200 post without knowing that?

[Abrahms]

Mongoose Trueborn, on 09 December 2012 - 05:53 PM, said:

The devs had said they are not following TT and simply used it as a baseline. How do you get 1200 post without knowing that?

They use the damage stats, heat stats, weight stats, etc. (other than a few minor changes to only a select portion of the weapon, ROF for instance on the AC2, or LL buffs).

Therefore, its more than baseline. They ported TT and have changed some thing to be expected (travel time, etc) but by roughly tripling the ROF for most weapons, and leaving the heatsystem, they totally broke the weapon balance that once was (took a msotly balanced game and made it with almost 0 balance).

They threw a wrench through the window with the heat system and ROF - they cant keep using the same weight and heat mechanics.

Indoorsman, on 09 December 2012 - 05:52 PM, said:

I did over 800 damage, doubt you'd do twice that :-o. Also doing 2-3x damage requires more opportunities to shoot. I think it wouldn't do as well even though it'd run cooler.

I actually have, but with lrms... sniping, I usually get to 900 or 1000 before every enemy is dead. That is, if the entire enemy team doesnt focus me or if my team isnt AFK (I mostly PUG, as I rarely play this abysmally optimized and horribly balanced game anymore).

[Abrahms]

They should re-label the trial mech tab with OVENmechs. Or perhaps, bread bakers. Or "The Earth's Core."

Maybe "Lava Pit."

Wouldnt it have been better when tripling the rate of fire to also adjust heat in some manner? Maybe, even, you know, redo the entire system since the battletech weight and damage #s now have absolutely no relevance to balance? You know... weapons used to weigh a certain amount because of their damage, heat, etc. With heat broken, now those stats have 0 relevance to a balance game. Thats is why the PPC:Gauss in TT was a 1:1 ratio but now the PPC weighs over twice as much for the same effect!!!!

[Leimrey]

I'm sure people will accuse me of thread necromancy, but this thread deserves to be on top. It should be stickied, IMO, since these same balance issues STILL remain after several months of testing. The ER energy weapons are absolutely unusable, especially when compared to gauss. Why would I get a 9M Awesome with quad ER LLs which can alpha twice before overheating and has an effective range of 675m, when I can get myself a gausscat or a gaussaphract which is heat neutral with 10 standard heatsinks and has an effective range of 660m? The ammo is really not an issue, very few matches last so long that you have the opportunity to expend 6-8 tons of gauss ammo and even if you did shoot so much rounds with decent accuracy, then you've done your job several times over as a support platform.

Wake up, PGI, people are leaving the game because it gets boring running the same builds over and over. We need diversity and only by un******* the heat system can this diversity be attained. Give us at least true dubs (10 in the engine + extra engine dubs + external dubs WHICH ARE ALL TRUE DUBS, not only those 10 built into engine) so we can see if they are overpowered as you say (which they are not), maybe they will make the ER energy weapons at least semi viable.

Or maybe this was your intent after all, huh? Maybe you just want to make energy weapons inferior to ballistics because they do not require ammunition and thus have no rearm costs? Maybe you just want to segregate the playerbase into energy weapons using "peasants" and ballistic/missile using "masterrace", which can scrounge up the C-bills for the rearm due to them having C-bill gain bonuses from premium or hero mechs? At this point, I don't even know whether this whole situation is a result of pure incompetence or some elaborate plot to make the game maximum P2W.

Edited by Leimrey, 11 December 2012 - 03:50 PM.

[Alexander 1978]

Hello everyone.

I followed this thread for a while now and I am happy how many of you see the problem with the "heavy" energy weapons.

For all of you who do not follow the "Command Chair" closely, here the link to the weapon balance thread look at the post from December the 12th:
http://mwomercs.com/...apon-balancing/

They are looking into the balance of the heavy energy weapons now and will find a solution that we all can live with. At least I hope so. What exactly will be done? I dunno but we will see something early next year. Maybe even in January or February who knows.

It is at least nice to know that the playerbase is not ignored and that they are aware of the problem and now actively working on it.

I am looking foward to 3-4 heavy energy weapons on the heavier mechs. Maybe 4 PPC/ERPPC builds will be viable in the near future.

I wish you all a merry Xmas, even if it is still one week till then.

Alexander 1978

Edited by Alexander 1978, 17 December 2012 - 04:54 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Yes, that were some argueably good news. We'll see what happens.

[WolvesX]

Heat sinks need to be fixed!

[MustrumRidcully]

WolvesX, on 17 December 2012 - 05:14 AM, said:

Heat sinks need to be fixed!

Freedom for Mars! [/Hopeless Cause?]

[Joseph Mallan]

Balancing heat would involve making sinks cycle proper to a MMO Combat turn. Movement+Fire (one salvo)+recycle/vent heat=One turn. 10 seconds worked for TT cause one turn took the better part of 10 minutes.

If the Sinks vented in say 4 seconds while Weapons recharge/load then we would have a more real time feel of a combat turn. Faster cyclic weapons will still have to watch their heat, but the idea that 4 Medium Pulse lasers(20 per salvo) overheat a 100T Mech with 18 double sinks 25 points of disipation per turn minimum) is just down right stupid. One turn is firing once and venting firing turn two is fire once and vent. At the 4 second venting cycle I would still get hot (3.0 second[ish] Cyclic) but it would be more managable.

Quote

Freedom for Mars! [/Hopeless Cause?]

Didn't know Mars had been subjugated?

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 17 December 2012 - 05:31 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

I believe as long as MW:O doesn't have the heat penalties from the game translated, they wil lneed some more creativity and variance from the table top game. In TT, going to 5 heat already carried penalties, very few times you'd actually venture to a heat level of 30 (and if only because you already check for shutdown at a heat level of 14.)

A lower heat capacity and a slightly increased heat-generation rate may be okay. But Slightly is not heat sinks working at 10 second rates and weapons at 4 second rates. More something like 6 vs 4 seconds...

So single heat sinks would need sink 0.16 heat per second... A fundamental problem of course is that Battletech just isn'T balanced without Battle Value once DHS enter the scene. And trying to use stock mechs and having them work well, while trying to balance the weapons and equipment, and still having the pace of the game (e.g. the speed things die due to mech firepower) be stable is just impossible. 8 Tech LEvel 2 IS Mechs fighting 8 Tech LEvel 2 IS mechs will either be faster than 8 Tech Level 1 vs 8 Tech LEvel 1 Mechs, or the Tech LEvel 2 stock mechs will have to face massive heat problems and be unfun to play.

Of course, we're still a step worse now - Tech LEvel 1 stock Mechs face massive heat problems, and Tech Levle 2 stock mechs have worse problems.

Joseph Mallan, on 17 December 2012 - 05:29 AM, said:

Didn't know Mars had been subjugated?

Rewatched Babylon 5 Season 3 and 4 recently.

[Joseph Mallan]

MustrumRidcully, on 17 December 2012 - 06:05 AM, said:

I believe as long as MW:O doesn't have the heat penalties from the game translated, they wil lneed some more creativity and variance from the table top game. In TT, going to 5 heat already carried penalties, very few times you'd actually venture to a heat level of 30 (and if only because you already check for shutdown at a heat level of 14.)

A lower heat capacity and a slightly increased heat-generation rate may be okay. But Slightly is not heat sinks working at 10 second rates and weapons at 4 second rates. More something like 6 vs 4 seconds...

So single heat sinks would need sink 0.16 heat per second... A fundamental problem of course is that Battletech just isn'T balanced without Battle Value once DHS enter the scene. And trying to use stock mechs and having them work well, while trying to balance the weapons and equipment, and still having the pace of the game (e.g. the speed things die due to mech firepower) be stable is just impossible. 8 Tech LEvel 2 IS Mechs fighting 8 Tech LEvel 2 IS mechs will either be faster than 8 Tech Level 1 vs 8 Tech LEvel 1 Mechs, or the Tech LEvel 2 stock mechs will have to face massive heat problems and be unfun to play.

Of course, we're still a step worse now - Tech LEvel 1 stock Mechs face massive heat problems, and Tech Levle 2 stock mechs have worse problems.

Yeah I want teh heat scale actually put back in the game too!

Quote

Rewatched Babylon 5 Season 3 and 4 recently.

Ah. Loved the Mimbari, and G'Kar!