19 replies to this topic

[Kotrin]

From the Double Heat Sinks 1.4 - FINE BY ME! thread:

stjobe, on 02 November 2012 - 03:16 PM, said:

Yeah, it's a bit anemic if compared to 40. But if it makes for a better, more interesting game perhaps it can be allowed? Let's try it on the 6th before we gather our pitchforks and light our torches.

That's probably what will happen anyway, since PGI has no clue over the metagame. (the metagame being like rock-paper-scissors, at 'Mech design level). They look deaf to the community. Seems we're here for grind and load tests on game servers only I guess. But I can't stand the DHS decision for a number of sound reasons, here they are.

First, PGI comes with conclusion on non-existent data. Since we are (not even yet) at Open Beta level and real DHS never made it here, the only real "Double" Heat Sink tests that ever happened were among devs or during a friday evening bar expedition around a beer. I find it disgraceful to throw away 20+ years of real fine-tuning and playtesting by FASA with statements like "We Know Better ™".

Second, *real* DHS (dissipating 2.0 heat units per time unit) would make plenty of custom 'Mech designs viable. ER-PPC, ER Large Lasers are *never* fielded by anyone and it will stay that way. No point in making them available in 'Mech garage. I'm quite sure you have all stats you want around, PGI, just tell me, how much of the player base is actually fielding any ER weapon at the moment, huh?

Third, this decision completely throws under a bus a ton of official 'Mech designs, simply because their armament does not mach their heat dissipation anymore - by a mile. Any such 'Mech will be utterly useless upon release until heat-generating weapons are properly downgraded first.
I can't wait these DHS 'Mechs to be uneditable Trial 'Mechs for a disaster of epic proportions.

Fourth, a real and mature solution would be to adjust game content and maps to allow other designs than all-you-can-field med lasers on a DHS chassis. City fight maps give plenty of opportunity for long-range sniper shots without turning it into a LRM fest. Glazing armor would utterly force laser array-based 'Mechs to reassess their designs. And so on.

This is not a balance adjustment, this is a debacle. To state an old quote from Eric Wujcik, "it's better to enlarge the game than to restrict the players." Too bad you chose the latter.

Give us Mechwarrior Online, we'll take care of balance ourselves, thanks. If all players have exactly the same access to the same technology, the balance issue is completely nonexistent. How can something be "unbalanced" when everyone has exactly the same access to it? And laser weapons still had cooldowns last time I checked.

At least, PGI, if you listen, don't call that "Double" Heat Sinks, so at least everyone is aware we're left Battletech territory.

Edited by Kotrin, 04 November 2012 - 08:50 AM.

[Wingbreaker]

Kotrin, on 04 November 2012 - 03:47 AM, said:

From the Double Heat Sinks 1.4 - FINE BY ME! thread:


At least, PGI, if you listen, don't call that "Double" Heat Sinks, so at least everyone is aware we're left Battletech territory.

You've already left battletech territory, ACs don't fire in bursts and we don't shoot every 10 seconds.

/Hey, you wanted a semantics argument.

[Comguard]

It is quite obvious right now that they have no idea how to balance this game.

[RH7N0]

If they mess up this game I'll just go back to Mechwarrior : Living Legends. At least they had (somewhat) better balancing than MWO.

[Wingbreaker]

Comguard, on 04 November 2012 - 04:18 AM, said:

It is quite obvious right now that they have no idea how to balance this game.

It is quite obvious right now that you will see things the way you want to see them.

/And this, children, is what we call confirmation bias.

[Captain Midnight]

Didn't FASA go out of business because Battletech wasn't good enough? If people liked the "fine tuned" battletech game how come it's bankrupt?

Battletech had a lot of good ideas, but copying their failure will just lead to failure. Take their ideas and make them better.

FYI tabletop strategy games are P2W and the balance is based around that in a TT setting.

Edited by Captain Midnight, 04 November 2012 - 04:39 AM.

[Sears]

I think the reduced heat efficiency of double heat sinks is probably down to the community's lust for customisation. If they were balancing stock mechs then I am sure everything would be a load easier. I can imagine though that true double heat sinks would just mean people running about in whatever chassis can boat the most medium pulse lasers.

Plus you don't want to get into a position where your mech has to have certain upgrades to compete. Stock mechs both trial and otherwise need to have some value on the battlefield.

[Ghosth]

What they don't realize is that they don't need to balance the game.

They just need to balance heat and the game will balance itself.

[MustrumRidcully]

Captain Midnight, on 04 November 2012 - 04:36 AM, said:

Didn't FASA go out of business because Battletech wasn't good enough? If people liked the "fine tuned" battletech game how come it's bankrupt?

Catalyst Game has picked up Battletech and is publishing it again just fine. Mismanagement is possible even with decent rules. Just ask TSR, which had produced the most succesful roleplaying game ever, which was the gateway drug to RPGs for countless of RPGers and the foundation of all CRPGs... It sold its assets to Wizards of the Coast. Mismanagement kills these companies more than anything else.

But, if you're worried that bad rules can kill companies (and it can, it's just not the only way), you should look at this game and ask yourself - is this game really balanced? Why do we see Gaussapults rather than PPC wielding Catapults? Why do LRMs deal twice the damage per ton than even some of the most efficient weapons, if you calculate all the heat sinks and ammo required for these weapons?

Have a good answer to this?

[Kotrin]

Captain Midnight, on 04 November 2012 - 04:36 AM, said:

Didn't FASA go out of business because Battletech wasn't good enough? If people liked the "fine tuned" battletech game how come it's bankrupt?

So you're basically telling Fasa went under because DHS were deemed too poweful? That's far stretched, to say the least.

Ask yourself: how many threads to complain about PGI's "opinion" of Double Heat Sink are actually created to
- congratulate PGI for this bold move
- complain that it's actually a dumb change?
Of both alternatives, which are more likely to cause this game to succeed / fail ?

In any PvP environment where all players have access to same build options, balance is a moot point: powerful builds will emerge no matter what, not even thought of by game designers, and will then spread around.

The bad idea against 1,4 DHS is that it forces players to dumb down their options, kill existing 'Mech designs, and is ultimately a proof of the lack of humility of PGI towards Battletech and Battletech fans. Not a good sign on the long run.

But you can be an absolute fanboi and think poor man's double heat sinks will save this franchise.
I personally think it's detrimental to the game success.
Your mileage may vary.

[BatWing]

MustrumRidcully, on 04 November 2012 - 05:32 AM, said:

Why do we see Gaussapults rather than PPC wielding Catapult?

Have a good answer to this?

I think I have an answer to this and I will tell you before I give my opinion about DHS.

Here the answer is a design flaw. You should not be able to remove the large (and vulnerable) PPCs and be able to put such large weapons such Gauss in a very protected small side torso.

Having Gausses mounted externally as forPPCs would make it way more vulnerable and less appealing.
And this is not even touching the heat management debate.

Now talking about DHS, when you approach a new generation game on computers you need to be ready to depart from rules coming from a TT environment.
Doing that means be ready to TEST new opportunities. It s so annoying that always the phrase "it s a Beta" need to come out, but here ppl is deaf to the concept.

Balancing is a delicate job, in my opinion this game is way better balanced in many aspects than any other MW game we had in the past. And is still work in progress.

Try to be openminded and understand that a certain departure rrom the TT need to happen if is beneficial to the action game we are playing.

If you do not agree with such a concept you have few options:

- 1 stay with your mindset and stay frustrated
- 2 embrace change and work toward solutions
- 3 go back playing TT or wait for Mechwarrior Tactics to be completed
- 4 leave the Beta now and come back when will be released because you don t feel like to be involved in testing something

All of the above decisions we ll be surely appreciated by the entire community.

[MustrumRidcully]

BatWing, on 04 November 2012 - 06:10 AM, said:

I think I have an answer to this and I will tell you before I give my opinion about DHS.

Here the answer is a design flaw. You should not be able to remove the large (and vulnerable) PPCs and be able to put such large weapons such Gauss in a very protected small side torso.

Having Gausses mounted externally as forPPCs would make it way more vulnerable and less appealing.
And this is not even touching the heat management debate.

So you agree that the heat is unbalanced?

I'll just note that it would also be possible to install 2 PPCs in the K2s side torsos as well - so I don't think it's a placing issue.

Quote

- 1 stay with your mindset and stay frustrated
- 2 embrace change and work toward solutions

I have worked for solutions. Nothing sticks.

Quote

- 3 go back playing TT or wait for Mechwarrior Tactics to be completed

MW Tactics may still be an option, but it's not a Mech Simulator. And they are not replicating TT rules either. And I am not a Battletech Player, as surprising as that may seem.

Quote

- 4 leave the Beta now and come back when will be released because you don t feel like to be involved in testing something

i am not interested in beta testing if my feedback is ignored, but if it keeps being ignored, then there is no reason to come back either. THe game won't get magically good if we don't keep talking about its issues.

[Signal27]

Kotrin, on 04 November 2012 - 03:47 AM, said:

I find it disgraceful to throw away 20+ years of real fine-tuning and playtesting by FASA with statements like "We Know Better ™".

FASA built, tested, and balanced a turn-based tabletop miniatures wargame. MWO is a real-time first-person mech-simulator/shooter computer game. Do you honestly think that if MWO took every single Battletech tabletop rule as-is for MWO, we'd have a balanced game to play?

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Actually guys, you want the SUPER EASY FIX for this stuff?

Have PGI get in contact with those still around from Virtual World Entertainment. Get the weapons data being used for the old "Battletech Pods" And port it over. That game never felt off to me in the few years I played, Take that data and just run with it.

[Stunner]

PGI has made lots of changes from TT for this game. For instance armour was increased since players can actually aim where they want to hit while TT was rolled for a hit location. LRM's still have a chance to miss, Ballistics have the firing delay which require some lead time. Energy weapons seem to be the easiest to aim and the way to balance them is through heat. I would still like to see the PPC be more viable than it currently is and I'm not happy with lasers being able to hit beyond their range which makes some weapons useless. I guess another way to change things for energy weapons is introduce a chance to miss or hit another location but that would send people in an uproar.

[Kotrin]

Honestly, there are tons of way of "fixing" it - but just one to make it right.
Everyone knows it.
Everyone wants it.
Yet PGI is just burning hard-earned community credit on this one.
I can't believe such a waste.


I can't understand the PGI argument of a DHS too powerful when it has never been playtested here even once.

And it's not like DHS were a late addtion to Battletech, either.

How many founders would have spent any dime on this game if they knew that DHS would count as 1,4 HS and other oddities that surely awaits us along the road?

Edited by Kotrin, 04 November 2012 - 08:51 AM.

[Card]

I'm very critical of PGI. I think they've over-promised and under-delivered, developed a 'bunker' mentality and failed to communicate with their customer base, invited people in to Beta test and then ignored their feedback, failed to implement any kind of viable quality control, made changes to rules without considering their full implications, focused on the wrong priorities, ignored blatant balance issues, and have made a whole series of critically flawed decisions almost guaranteed to alienate both new players and veteran members of the franchise.

But...

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and try out the 1.4 DHS. It's a relatively minor tweak, and I can see the reasoning behind it. I say let's try it out for awhile and see how it goes.

[Sandpit]

Kotrin, on 04 November 2012 - 06:05 AM, said:

Ask yourself: how many threads to complain about PGI's "opinion" of Double Heat Sink are actually

So we needed another one why? Why couldn't this have been posted in one of the numerous threads already in existence about this?

[Konflict]

Card, on 04 November 2012 - 08:52 AM, said:

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and try out the 1.4 DHS. It's a relatively minor tweak, and I can see the reasoning behind it. I say let's try it out for awhile and see how it goes.

We have been running 1.4 DHS builds which we wasted a ton of CBill's on and they don't work. All we can do is wait to see what they come up with as a fix. They need to open up a test server

[RAM]

Thank you for your feedback.


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