269 replies to this topic

[Targetloc]

The more I model different builds damage outputs, the more I realize that the heat cap is where the system is really broken. Most mech builds over 50 tons can easily core anything smaller than an Atlas before they heatcap.

[MustrumRidcully]

Targetloc, on 16 November 2012 - 01:24 PM, said:

The more I model different builds damage outputs, the more I realize that the heat cap is where the system is really broken. Most mech builds over 50 tons can easily core anything smaller than an Atlas before they heatcap.

Interesting observation. Care to show some examples? I tend to agree, but still, some examples could help to illustrate the issue.

I will just make two purely hypothetical examples of how the heat capacity can make a difference:

Mech with 20 heat sinks and 4 Medium Lasers in MW:O

MW:O Rules:
Heat Cap: 50, Dissipation 2/sec
Weapons: 5 DPS; Heat Generation: 4/sec
Net Heat Generation 2/sec
Time to Overheat: 25 seconds
Damage Dealt in Time to Overheat: 25 * 5 = 125 damage.

Variant Rule: Heat Sinks do not affect capacity at all
Heat Cap: 30; DIssipation 2/sec
Weapons: 5 DPS; Heat Generation: 4/sec
Net Heat Generation 2/sec
Time to Overheat: 15 seconds
Damage Dealt in Time to Overheat: 75

[Reoh]

I think doubling the armor was a good thing. You can still go down very fast with optimised builds. But there's something about ammo you didn't consider.

AC2 has 75 shots per ton, collectively producing 150 damage.
AC10 has 15 shots per ton, collectively producing 150 damage.
AC20 has 14 shots per ton, collectively producing 140 damage.
Gauss has 10 shots per ton, collectively producing 150 damage.

The AC20 is slightly worse off having been rounded down rather than up for one shot extra, probably because it has such a high alpha but only weighs slightly more (2t) than the AC10 (and less than the Gauss).

[Tuhalu]

Reoh, on 17 November 2012 - 05:43 AM, said:

I think doubling the armor was a good thing. You can still go down very fast with optimised builds. But there's something about ammo you didn't consider.

AC2 has 75 shots per ton, collectively producing 150 damage.
AC10 has 15 shots per ton, collectively producing 150 damage.
AC20 has 14 shots per ton, collectively producing 140 damage.
Gauss has 10 shots per ton, collectively producing 150 damage.

The AC20 is slightly worse off having been rounded down rather than up for one shot extra, probably because it has such a high alpha but only weighs slightly more (2t) than the AC10 (and less than the Gauss).

AC20 has 7 shots for 140 damage total. I think you accidentally wrote the tonnage of the AC20 in there. lol

Don't try to compare the tonnage of the Gauss and any Tier1 Autocannon though. There are just too many differences for it to be meaningful. Range, Heat, Damage and chance to explode in the users face all contribute to tonnage tweaks while still making it a more efficient technology per tonnage (like the UAC/5 and LB-10X).

Edited by Tuhalu, 17 November 2012 - 08:31 AM.

[Ghosth]

Can one of the TT experts post a side by side comparison of TT rules vs Solaris?

Dev's have more than once hinted than the rule set they are using is NOT TT, but Solaris. I for one would like to have a better idea of exactly what that entails.

This thread continues to inform, amaze and confound me.
Inform as to how things work and why.
Amazed at how good some of you are at working out the math and why things work as they do.
Confound as in how some people even though you show them the truth refuse to accept it.

As to making a heat neutral effective build it is possible. My Founders cat runs 2 large lasers cool as can be. Only heating up when I start triggering off a pair of SRM 4's for close in work. Averages 1-2 kills per sortie, with multiple assists. Best single sortie was 5 kills and 3 assists. But playing style makes big differences. If your up close and personal the faster you can kill them the better off you are.

Really only the sniper can afford to limit his firepower so that he can concentrate on targets rather than heat management.

[MCXL]

Ghosth, on 17 November 2012 - 10:16 AM, said:

Dev's have more than once hinted than the rule set they are using is NOT TT, but Solaris.

I've never seen them say that.

[Delta66]

MCXL, on 19 November 2012 - 10:28 AM, said:

I've never seen them say that.

Nor have I

[Lanessar]

MustrumRidcully, on 17 November 2012 - 03:12 AM, said:

Interesting observation. Care to show some examples? I tend to agree, but still, some examples could help to illustrate the issue.

I will just make two purely hypothetical examples of how the heat capacity can make a difference:

Mech with 20 heat sinks and 4 Medium Lasers in MW:O
...
Variant Rule: Heat Sinks do not affect capacity at all
Heat Cap: 30; DIssipation 2/sec
Weapons: 5 DPS; Heat Generation: 4/sec
Net Heat Generation 2/sec
Time to Overheat: 15 seconds
Damage Dealt in Time to Overheat: 75

Honestly, they could simply alter the rules so that single heat sinks increase the heat cap by 30+0.5 per HS and DHS increase the heat cap by 1.0, and there would be no further issue with a "Jenner coring an Atlas from behind".

This is just a band-aid for the heat issues heavy energy weapons face, but changing those values alone (or even just keeping the heat cap for both SHS and DHS at 1.0 per sink) would resolve whatever problem the devs believe exist with DHS.

It just boggles the mind how utterly complex a problem can be made and why, in a game environment, you don't just "adjust" DHS to 1.4. It's a knee-jerk reaction at best, and bound to upset players having spent millions for the upgrade. Reminds me of the economy "tweak" in closed beta where they forgot to award performance, and ended up with suicide exploiters for two weeks. And lost a portion of their player base to it.

It honestly doesn't take much foresight to fix these issues in a non-reactive way. This is why I feel this thread is of vital importance in a design meeting scenario; so that balancing (not necessarily totally against TT) gets actually addressed, not just "tweaked" for the next 20 patches until they finally do just scrap a broken system.

It's broken because it WAS based off of TT values, in a 10-second window, and then adjusted (with rate of fire) without changing any of the other two variables. It just frustrates me that obviously intelligent and bright developers can't (during this time in beta) just throw out a broken system and put something workable, or the apparency is that the belief from the design team is that "it just needs a little tweaking".

[MustrumRidcully]

Lanessar, I'd even go so far and say the base cap needs to be lowered.
There is no reason to h ave it start at 30.

At a heat level of 30, in the table top a mech automatically shutdown - no way to override it.
It required a heat level 14 just to trigger a pilot roll to avoid shutting down.

Otherwise - I agree - it seems obvious their approach would lead to a more imbalanced system than even the TT was, and that their current attempt to fix it is haphazard and lacks the necessary direction.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 19 November 2012 - 02:54 PM.

[Lefty Lucy]

Vapor Trail, on 15 November 2012 - 06:31 AM, said:

For a Splatapult (dual AC/20s) I think:

It should be "OH god... kill it, kill it now, and kill it with FIRE before it gets in raaaaaaaaange!"

Now it's more like: "Is it in range? No... good I can worry about something else at the moment."

...

I guess it's just me who hears the enemy's radio chatter in my head...

With ES and DHS, they are actually very, very scary. Definitely my #1 target if they are in range. That's actually their biggest downside, is that their short range lets them be easily mass-targeted by the enemy.

[RAM]

Ghosth, on 17 November 2012 - 10:16 AM, said:

Dev's have more than once hinted than the rule set they are using is NOT TT, but Solaris..

Yes, yes they did. Looking forward to beta forum access once it is finished archiving.

MCXL, on 19 November 2012 - 10:28 AM, said:

I've never seen them say that.

Delta66, on 19 November 2012 - 12:20 PM, said:

Nor have I

Convenient or convenience…?

MustrumRidcully, on 19 November 2012 - 02:54 PM, said:

At a heat level of 30, in the table top a mech automatically shutdown - no way to override it.

False – check out the advanced rules.

Thontor, on 19 November 2012 - 03:09 PM, said:

It actually makes perfect sense to have the heat sinks increase the heat capacity. Since weapon heat is front loaded in MWO, if we had a fixed heat capacity of 30 we would shut down the instant we fired our weapons if they generated 30+ heat no matter how many heat sinks we have.
So in essence, the TT heat scale is also 30+heat sinks.

Not surprisingly just like how Solaris does it.


RAM
ELH

[Aerik Lornes]

RAM, on 19 November 2012 - 04:28 PM, said:

Yes, yes they did. Looking forward to beta forum access once it is finished archiving.

I looked for it and I don't recall them ever saying it in the closed beta forums. If they did claim this and I just missed it then there was some serious misunderstanding about how the S7 rules worked.

RAM, on 19 November 2012 - 04:28 PM, said:

Convenient or convenience…?

More likely hard to find, since I missed it and I was looking for it.

RAM, on 19 November 2012 - 04:28 PM, said:

False – check out the advanced rules.

So it's now Solaris + non-Solaris rules?

RAM, on 19 November 2012 - 04:28 PM, said:

Not surprisingly just like how Solaris does it.

Solaris didn't work like that.


Solaris VII rules multiplied heat x4 but it also multiplied heat dissipation x4 and increased the heat chart to 120 (again x4 and fixed, not variable). The only thing MWO has that vaguely matches S7 is that there are heat spikes and cooldowns. The difference is that in S7, 10 heat sinks = 40 heat dissipation, and weapons have longer cooldowns and thus run way cooler than MWO.

From Page 49:
Under "Building Up Heat"
"The heat costs for most actions have been increased because a 'Mech recovers from actions four times faster in the dueling system than in Battletech."

Under "Weapons"
"The heat costs for all weapons used in 'Mech duels have been multiplied by 4 because a 'Mech can dissipate heat 4 times as fast at this scale."

MWO is approximately triple heat with single dissipation and a variable (by heat sinks) heat chart.

[Asatruer]

RAM, on 19 November 2012 - 04:28 PM, said:

Not surprisingly just like how Solaris does it.

Aerik Lornes, on 19 November 2012 - 05:38 PM, said:

Solaris didn't work like that.

RAM, it is a bit surprising with how much you flog the "Solaris does/did it." excuse that you seem to have such interesting gaps in your knowledge of both how Solaris VII worked, and what ill effects on BattleTech weapon balance it had. Though considering that Solaris VII has been out of print for around a decade and a half, and that the rules have never been reprinted in any of the Core or Advanced rules books, and not even when the Solaris VII mechs were reprinted, it should come as no surprise. Every time you bring up Solaris VII in defense of the current broken weapon balance, evidence is brought forward to show that Solaris VII's dueling rules broke weapon balance in much the same way we they are broken here in MWO, and you never address that issue. Convenient or convenience…?


When it comes down to it here is the most important question:
Is MechWarrior: Online simulating a mech arena dueling game for the entertainment of the masses, or is it a simulation of mech tactical warfare waged by interstellar empires?
The answer to that question should lead us in the direction of which rules-set we should be looking at for how to get some balance in this game.

Edited by Asatruer, 19 November 2012 - 06:15 PM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Thontor, on 19 November 2012 - 03:09 PM, said:

It actually makes perfect sense to have the heat sinks increase the heat capacity. Since weapon heat is front loaded in MWO, if we had a fixed heat capacity of 30 we would shut down the instant we fired our weapons if they generated 30+ heat no matter how many heat sinks we have. Compared to TT where only heat remaining after the heat sinks have done their job is applied to the scale. So in essence, the TT heat scale is also 30+heat sinks..

Yes, I understand why it was done. But - 30 heat is the point of automatic shutdown in TT. In MW:O, we can press O and override. Ammo explosions can occur much earler tha 30 heat, and the first shutdown chance occurs at a heat level of 14. So they are basically giving us twice the heat capacity as a base than TT has. If heat management is so important to them, why do this?


And while I understand why heat sinks add to heat capacity - what if that was simply the wrong decision?

The heat dissipation will still occur over those 10 seconds. If you fire all your weapons, but not all of them together, you would be able to survive with a heat capacity of 30. A heat neutral mech for example will with 100 % certainity return to 0 heat after 10 seconds.

Let's take a PPC as example, for math simplicity, let's say it can produce 30 heat in 10 seconds, and you can fire it 3 times in 10 seconds (so ever 3.33 seconds).
Would you overheat with this PPC if you had 30 heat sinks?

No.
You go to 10 heat at 0 seconds, drop down by 0 heat by the time you fire your 2nd PPC, and so on. So there was no need to add the heat sinks to your mech's capacity.

What yo uwolud need them for if you had, say 4 PPCs and want them all to fire together - no matter how many heat sinks you would have, you'd overheat on that salvo. You need to chain fire them then.

But maybe that's exactly how things should be to make heat management more interesting and challenging, and to counter the advantages of convergence?

[RAM]

Aerik Lornes, on 19 November 2012 - 05:38 PM, said:

So it's now Solaris + non-Solaris rules?

Solaris didn't work like that.

Solaris is perfectly capable of using any & all advanced rules – just like Battletech, Battleforce, Battletroops, Battlespace, etc.

Solaris did work like that. If you are going to try and correct me, at least make sure I am wrong.
“a Battlemech’s heat sinks act as buffers that absorb their rating every turn. Any heat generated in excess of a ‘Mech’s Heat Sink Rating is accumulated and carries over to the next turn.” (pg 45)
Sound familiar?

Asatruer, on 19 November 2012 - 06:14 PM, said:

RAM, it is a bit surprising with how much you flog the "Solaris does/did it." excuse that you seem to have such interesting gaps in your knowledge of both how Solaris VII worked, and what ill effects on BattleTech weapon balance it had. Though considering that Solaris VII has been out of print for around a decade and a half, and that the rules have never been reprinted in any of the Core or Advanced rules books, and not even when the Solaris VII mechs were reprinted, it should come as no surprise. Every time you bring up Solaris VII in defense of the current broken weapon balance, evidence is brought forward to show that Solaris VII's dueling rules broke weapon balance in much the same way we they are broken here in MWO, and you never address that issue. Convenient or convenience…?

Ignoring that the Solaris mechs have been reprinted, see above as to heat. Once again demonstrating it is not my knowledge that has gaps – but it is not surprising that you can use the OOP for over a decade excuse I suppose.

Ignoring/dismissing my answer does not mean I have not answered the question. Weapon balance changes depending upon the accuracy of the model; as Solaris is the most accurate model, its balance is proper. Far more importantly however, is that the armour distribution is for non-PPA weapons; as the MWO wpns are effectively PPA it robs larger weapons of their balance NOT the cyclic rates.

While colloquially referred to as dueling rules the fact of the matter is that they can be used for any level of combat, just as the higher scale models can be used for dueling. The game attempts to simulate real-time mech combat and therefore should use the closest model to real time.

The Solaris rules far more accurately depict Battlemech combat on the sub-Unit scale as demonstrated in no less than four (4) previous games.


RAM
ELH

[Xerxys]

What I'm having a real hard time understanding is why PGI decided to reduce the "round" time to 3 seconds but not anything else. They further compacted the problem by doubling armor and then LRM damage and .... (the list goes on)

Why the devil didn't PGI adjust everything by the same degree. Drop damage, heat cost, heat capacity, armor, and ROF to 1/3 of TT, Then multiply ammo and heat dissipation by 3. Wouldn't this be a good way to transfer from TT to a sim? The mech hard points and max tonnage would dictate what weapons can be used and how many heat sinks/ammo...etc you would need. Looking at it the pace of game play would speed up significantly, but still require focused fire. Heat would still be an issue as it has been in every MW title I've ever played. From what I've seen on the forums, people are confusing heat threshold with heat dissipation. Every "fix" i've seen posted is about adjusting heat threshold/rate of heat build up more than heat dissipation. If I'm wrong in this post then please enlighten me as to why this wouldn't fix practically every bonered-up heat issue the masses are complaining about.
What I know from experience is the game play for any sort of energy platform is ****. Even chain firing the mass weapons I can carry, I would overheat way sooner than I should be.

[Xerxys]

Redoxin, on 16 November 2012 - 12:54 PM, said:

So much text and I still didnt get what the issue of the OP is.

I can just say that I like the heat system and that being forced to manage your heat adds an additional layer of complexity and enriches the game. I really hope there will never be a heat neutral energy build with good DPS.

edit.
Could maybe someone summarize in 2 sentences what the problem with the heat system is?

GaussCat. Practically no heat build up, ungodly damage at range and brawling.

[Xerxys]

Allekatrase, on 10 November 2012 - 05:14 PM, said:

I'm not sure if I was unclear or if this is even aimed at me. I'm not saying they wouldn't be useful on a larger chassis, just that boating them on larger chassis wouldn't be that useful. On something like a hunchback or a jenner medium lasers would be probably the largest weapons you would want to fit. On something like an AWS8-Q you'd want to fit something bigger. However, the Awesome is not going to be able to fit the larger things in all of it's slots and therefore will most likely fill in the remaining slots with either medium or small lasers. They would still be useful, it just wouldn't be at the point it is now where it's pretty much more useful to fit medium lasers because heat is so hard to manage for the larger ones.

Also, if one weapon is the gold standard that's always useful, how is that balanced? Well, that's a bad question. If everyone uses the same weapon it's balanced. The question should be how is that desirable? Where's the variety? Or am I missing something?

The variety comes to those wishing to do more damage. They then have to choose whether they want to sacrifice heat cost, tonnage, critical space, range etc.... The gold STANDARD is just that. It's the point of reference. Nothing flashy about it, just a very solid weapon given all the factors involved.

[Asatruer]

RAM, on 20 November 2012 - 02:57 AM, said:

Ignoring that the Solaris mechs have been reprinted, see above as to heat. Once again demonstrating it is not my knowledge that has gaps – but it is not surprising that you can use the OOP for over a decade excuse I suppose.

Maybe I misunderstand you, but did you just say that you are going to ignore the fact that the Solaris VII mechs were reprinted but not the Solaris VII rules? Do you not find that telling about the popular opinion about those rules?

RAM, on 20 November 2012 - 02:57 AM, said:

Ignoring/dismissing my answer does not mean I have not answered the question. Weapon balance changes depending upon the accuracy of the model; as Solaris is the most accurate model, its balance is proper.

So you are saying that Solaris VII's weapon balance that seems to make smaller, shorter ranged weapons that fire more often more potent than an equivalent single larger, longer ranged weapon that does the same damage per-shot as many of the smaller weapons do per volley is the more proper and more accurate balance model for BattleTech combat?
You are saying that Solaris VII is a better mech combat sim than BattleTech is?
With the amount of abuse heaped on the TT Grognards around here for wanting MWO to be more simulationist, wouldn't said TT Grognards embrace with open arms a system that, as you say, more accurately and properly depicts mech combat? But as history has demonstrated, Solaris VII's mech combat rules were so unpopular as to have not been reprinted in any of the basic core rules, nor any of the advanced more simulationist for the purposes of more accurately depicting mech combat rules. Personally, I would really like a more granular time increment simulation of BattleTech combat, but without Solaris VII's pushing of weapon balance towards the small/medium laser and MG boating.

RAM, on 20 November 2012 - 02:57 AM, said:

Far more importantly however, is that the armour distribution is for non-PPA weapons; as the MWO wpns are effectively PPA it robs larger weapons of their balance NOT the cyclic rates.

Good to hear that we agree on at least something, but with the minor caveat that that PinPointAccuracy benifits all non-guided weapons equally, and that it is the Convergence of weapon rather than PPA that causes the necessity of the doubled armor. I am guessing that is what you meant, as it is what most people are trying to talk about when they claim that pinpoint accuracy is what is causing all weapons fired in a volley to hit the same(ish) location. The current Range system that starts weapon damage drop off after what would be TT's Long range, rather than say Short or Medium range, also benefits shorter range weapons more than it does longer range weapons. But, as seen in Solaris VII mech designs (either canon or not), boating lots of smaller weapons was still the more optimal course of action, which should tell us that even without MWO style weapon Convergence or full average damage over many shots at max range, that something in Solaris VII's mech dueling rules tipped the balance towards the small weapons.

RAM, on 20 November 2012 - 02:57 AM, said:

While colloquially referred to as dueling rules the fact of the matter is that they can be used for any level of combat, just as the higher scale models can be used for dueling. The game attempts to simulate real-time mech combat and therefore should use the closest model to real time.

Yes, Solaris VII's mech dueling rules could be used in larger lance, or multiple lance, level mech battles, but it would still have the same effect of re-balancing weapons to favor the small weapons over the large ones. Changing the scale (the quantity of mechs, or the size of the map) of the battle does not change the fact that by using Solaris VII rather than BattleTech rules, pilots are encouraged to use many smaller shorter range weapons, and use the tons saved on weapon size for other things as they are more likely to get the job done. It seems pretty clear that there is a general impression that there are quiet a few people around here in the MWO forums that do not like the trend of boating lots of little weapons, as Solaris VII's rules encourage.


Simply put, Solaris VII's rule set was not popular with the TT crowd, and the effects that it had of pushing weapon balance to boating lots of little weapons seems to be not popular with the MWO crowd. PGI even seems to think that boating lots of weapons is a bad thing by trying discourage it by not following BattleTech or Solaris VII heat dissipation rates and then by nerfing DHS. If Solaris VII was the model PGI was trying to achieve for MWO, they would not need to keep heatsinks at the 1 heat per 10 seconds scale and nerf DHS, as Solaris VII did not need to do either.

[MustrumRidcully]

So, anyone has hopes that things will improve?

The recent talk about PPCs and (ER) LLs may give me some hope. But then there I's that Russ Bullock interview... *sigh*