15 replies to this topic

[Shomer Shalom]

It is being widely discussed how good ER/PPC/Gauss/AC20 play is in the game right now. Some of this will change when other weapons (especially missiles) are brought back into line. However, as things stand now there isn't a lot in terms of strategy to ACTIVELY counter this play style in the game in an interesting way. Yes, you can do things like cap/flank, but a well organized team can counter in response.

What if the flamer actually raised the heat of mechs in somewhat reliable, effective way? Seems that these are the types of builds the weapon would be most effective against. Also, it gives light mechs (the hardest hit by the recent changes like BSR) another viable role to fill on the team. Trying to level spiders right now is painful (5V and 5K...ugh), but this would give a fast, jumping mech something to do other than cap.

Somebody much smarter than me needs to figure out how to do this well in terms of balance, as we don't want any perma-shutdown happening. However, I think this would be worth looking at.

What do people think? Good or bad idea and why? Side question: do light mechs need more to do?

[General Taskeen]

Yes, what if indeed.

I think people were too terrified of the explosiony good that Flamers caused in MW3. You either blew yourself up, or you overheated the enemy so much that they went boom.

[Deathlike]

Flamers have to do one thing or the other well... either heat mechs up significantly (making 6PPC Stalkers stay quiet indefinitely or deal some semblance of damage while being up really close (64m happens to be the lowest range of all weapons in this game).

It does neither well.

Right now, Flamers are great for heating yourself up faster than your enemy. That has to be changed.

[Psikez]

I would appreciate flamers being useful

[Wrenchfarm]

Difficult to make it fun.

I think a lot of people that want flamers to spike the enemies heat aren't thinking it through. How lame would it be when a 6 Flamer Jenner just parks behind your Atlas all game and shuts you down all match? How crappy would a meta game all about lights sneaking in and forcibly shutting down Assaults, or brawling devolving into a race to see who can shut the other one down faster? Afterall, you don't need many other weapons to take out a stationary target that can't shoot back.

You can say "this is why your team has to watch your back!" but I just don't buy it. Mechanics that take away your ability to move or fight back are infuriating. Look at how long it took the TF2 team to figure out the loathed Sandman (a weapon the Scout could stun another player with). Think of all the FPS games that devolved into games of flashbang hot potato. Stuns aren't even fun in MMO PvP, most games making players either immune or effected differently when hit with attacks that would incapacitate a normal enemy. The most infuriating moment in a fighting game is when you get dizzied, but at least the opponent had to work for it and there are clear mechanics governing what makes a player stunned.

Flamers NEED love. They're useless right now and that sucks. I would love to breath some fire on my enemies and have it do something. But I think looking for a heat based weapon is barking up the wrong tree.

[Miles Naismith]

If anything, flamers should raise how much heat the enemy's weapons generate or lower the effectiveness of their Heatsinks by a percentage, effectively lowering their DPS. That way there's always a way to fight back, but you're still attacking their heat.

In addition, it could raise their minimum heat, similar to enviromental effects.

[Elizander]

Flamers just raising heat and not shutting down mechs would be better if there were heat penalties.

[Corvus Antaka]

The flamer is actually kind of useful. I think the issue is more that the flamer pushes heat on the mech using it so high that firing anything else isnt very viable, and the time to raise the targets heat just is too long.

still, a pack of mechs with flamers can keep someone perma shut down, so it is far from useless.

[Soulscour]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 26 April 2013 - 08:31 PM, said:

The flamer is actually kind of useful. I think the issue is more that the flamer pushes heat on the mech using it so high that firing anything else isnt very viable, and the time to raise the targets heat just is too long.

still, a pack of mechs with flamers can keep someone perma shut down, so it is far from useless.

Flamers do not stack. More likely it is from bad piloting. Your pack did 2% heat to the enemy.

[Tickdoff Tank]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 26 April 2013 - 08:31 PM, said:

The flamer is actually kind of useful. I think the issue is more that the flamer pushes heat on the mech using it so high that firing anything else isnt very viable, and the time to raise the targets heat just is too long.

still, a pack of mechs with flamers can keep someone perma shut down, so it is far from useless.

I have had 2 Hunchbacks, each with 6+ flamers attack my 4 PPC stalker. I did not notice any additional heat.

[Keifomofutu]

Tickdoff Tank, on 26 April 2013 - 09:06 PM, said:

I have had 2 Hunchbacks, each with 6+ flamers attack my 4 PPC stalker. I did not notice any additional heat.

They currently only raise your minimum heat lvl. So you won't cool down below a certain point. I don't think they stack either.

[Stokes52]

Keifomofutu, on 26 April 2013 - 09:18 PM, said:

They currently only raise your minimum heat lvl. So you won't cool down below a certain point. I don't think they stack either.

So does this mean that running 1 flamer is just as effective at raising an opponents heat as running, say, 8 on a Hunchback?

[Lefty Lucy]

We fought against an 8-man using all flamers earlier today. It was 8-0 our favor, and they were obviously being super, super coordinated. Hell, I had no IFF and managed to drop 2 of them because it was super, super obvious which guys were the baddies. We weren't really surprised by the results.

[MustrumRidcully]

Raising the heat ability of Flamers would be bad, I think, because it paves the way to stuns and their worse offspring,stun locks. I really don't think we want that.

But there are things the Flamer could do that would make it useful.
1) Damage. It's range is 64m, and you must maintain fire continuously to deliver some DPS. Raise the damage so its worth the heat and the risks.
2) Heat Effects. No shutdowns, but how about the electronics going haywire (like MW3 heat effects) and your HUD flickering, your RADAR showing false echoes, you losing your selected target temporarily. Maybe even blurry vision because you, the pilot, can't handle the heat. Maybe even ECM and BAP breaking down temporarily.

[FrostCollar]

Wrenchfarm, on 26 April 2013 - 02:59 PM, said:

Difficult to make it fun.

I think a lot of people that want flamers to spike the enemies heat aren't thinking it through. How lame would it be when a 6 Flamer Jenner just parks behind your Atlas all game and shuts you down all match? How crappy would a meta game all about lights sneaking in and forcibly shutting down Assaults, or brawling devolving into a race to see who can shut the other one down faster?

I could be remembering this wrong, but I seem to recall a different suggestion that was floated a long time ago and apparently set by the wayside. That was that the heat the flamer added would diminish as mech heat increased. The idea was that the flamer would be incapable of shutting down an enemy mech, but they would be able to raise enemy internal temperature to such a point that they'd easily shutdown if they alpha. If flamers are made primarily a heat inducing tool, something like that implementation is necessary. Keeping an enemy shutdown indefinitely sounds boring and unfair for everyone involved.

Edited by FrostCollar, 27 April 2013 - 09:40 AM.

[Keifomofutu]

MustrumRidcully, on 27 April 2013 - 06:22 AM, said:

Raising the heat ability of Flamers would be bad, I think, because it paves the way to stuns and their worse offspring,stun locks. I really don't think we want that.

But there are things the Flamer could do that would make it useful.
1) Damage. It's range is 64m, and you must maintain fire continuously to deliver some DPS. Raise the damage so its worth the heat and the risks.
2) Heat Effects. No shutdowns, but how about the electronics going haywire (like MW3 heat effects) and your HUD flickering, your RADAR showing false echoes, you losing your selected target temporarily. Maybe even blurry vision because you, the pilot, can't handle the heat. Maybe even ECM and BAP breaking down temporarily.

I think they could expand on the minimum heat level of your mech they got now. Basically the longer flamers act on your mech the higher the minimum raises that you can't cool below. They would be capped much higher than it is now around 75-80%(basically a lvl that any single weapon in the game could still fire without overheat). So you couldn't autoshutdown a mech but you could reduce his heat cap so low that he would no longer be able to alpha strike at all and would have to fire one big gun at a time.

I guess guy above said similar.