532 replies to this topic

[Lanessar]

Want to know how the system went wrong?

PGI introduced rate of fire without mitigating the other two "legs" of heat and damage.

A PPC does 10 damage, generates 10 heat and fires once per 10 seconds. The mech also dissipates 1 heat per 10 seconds (per heat sink) in tabletop.

In MWO, a PPC does 10 damage, generates 10 heat, and fires once every 4 seconds. The mech also dissipates 0.1 heat per second (1 heat per 10 seconds) - same as TT. Most weapons fire 2-3 times per 10 second interval - but generate the same heat as their 10-second TT counterparts.

And we have heat problems? Do tell.

I'm pretty sure everyone here can figure out where the system went wonky from here. It's basic math.

I don't believe TT values should be adhered to. But don't take TT values and then frack with them by introducing ROF and then expect a balanced system. It's BASIC MATH.

Edited by Lanessar, 06 November 2012 - 05:00 AM.

[OskaRus]

I agree that all the balance from TT is turned upside down but.....

After it becomes ballanced again it might turn out to be something better than we expected.

[Lanessar]

OskaRus, on 06 November 2012 - 04:58 AM, said:

I agree that all the balance from TT is turned upside down but.....

After it becomes ballanced again it might turn out to be something better than we expected.

My problem is that they have started with a TT system, introduced a variable, and didn't do the basic maths. It's a house built on a flawed foundation. The TT game was balanced. They started with those values, but didn't factor in ROF. It took me literally 5 minutes to figure out why the heat system was borked versus the TT system. Why couldn't they?

[Matthew Ace]

Mister Zeus, on 06 November 2012 - 04:28 AM, said:

2.) As noted in the Nov. 6 patch commentary, Single Heat sinks increase maximum heat scale by 1 per single heat sink, while double heat sinks increase maximum heat scale by 2 per double heat sink. 20 double heat sinks thus increase maximum heat scale by 40, while 28 single heat sinks only increase it by 28. Thus, the Awesome 9M not only has 8 addition tons to play with from above, but it also can take more heat points before shut down (and thus gains more from Heat Containment than the 8Q).

+2 to Heat Capacity, +0.14 to Heat Dissipation? I can live with this. I think a lot of people were up in arms about this because it was thought that Capacity is reduced to +1.4 each as well.

I can't find the commentary stating the increase of Maximum Heat Capacity using DHS to remain at +2 each. Any links?

Edited by Matthew Ace, 06 November 2012 - 05:08 AM.

[Krivvan]

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

My problem is that they have started with a TT system, introduced a variable, and didn't do the basic maths. It's a house built on a flawed foundation. The TT game was balanced. They started with those values, but didn't factor in ROF. It took me literally 5 minutes to figure out why the heat system was borked versus the TT system. Why couldn't they?

Doesn't the TT rely on BV in order to balance? Without that it's one of the most imbalanced tabletop games ever.

[Rifter]

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

My problem is that they have started with a TT system, introduced a variable, and didn't do the basic maths. It's a house built on a flawed foundation. The TT game was balanced. They started with those values, but didn't factor in ROF. It took me literally 5 minutes to figure out why the heat system was borked versus the TT system. Why couldn't they?

The better question is why didnt they firgure it out 4+ months ago when the people in the beta forum WERE TELLING THEM THE ROF INCREASE IS WHAT SCREWED IT UP

[Morang]

Lanessar, on 06 November 2012 - 04:54 AM, said:

Want to know how the system went wrong?

PGI introduced rate of fire without mitigating the other two "legs" of heat and damage.

Exactly that was told them for like 1000 times with great walls of text and math. They avoid all discussions on that particular matter, sometimes obscuring this when directly asked in some inteviews/Q&As by statements like "the game is not in a finished state and balance can be adjusted in future". As total rehaul of weapons balance is too great a task for them and I also believe that they done it on purpose, the day when I realised this, read their statements that "trial mechs are here to stay" and saw that they began testing the starving economy was the day when I refunded my way out of this psycho circus and ceased to take it close to the heart.

[EDMW CSN]

The problem is nerfing DHS nerfs ER tech directly. Who is going to mount ER PPCs much less carry 2 to 3 of them if they got a ballistic slot ?

Yes there are Atlases that can run 2x PPC + 1 GR config. But it has the tonnage for that to boat heatsinks, the rest of the Mechs do not have such luxury.

[Lanessar]

Rifter, on 06 November 2012 - 05:06 AM, said:

The better question is why didnt they firgure it out 4+ months ago when the people in the beta forum WERE TELLING THEM THE ROF INCREASE IS WHAT SCREWED IT UP

Krivvan, on 06 November 2012 - 05:06 AM, said:

Doesn't the TT rely on BV in order to balance? Without that it's one of the most imbalanced tabletop games ever.

Not in a single-salvo fire scenario. The mitigating factors of balance are: weapon damage, weapon heat, heat dissipation. You're thinking matchmaking, which is an entirely different gripe than that of how a mech functions basically, against, say, a rock.

Matchmaking will be even more broken. The contribution of one build versus another will be even more broken because the base mech function of heat dissipation is wonky.

If this was brought up in CB (and I was in beta for 4 months), dear lord.

Edited by Lanessar, 06 November 2012 - 05:12 AM.

[Cola]

Could be worse, could still be in Microsoft's hands and be called Mech Assault Online.

[John Norad]

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

My problem is that they have started with a TT system, introduced a variable, and didn't do the basic maths. It's a house built on a flawed foundation. The TT game was balanced. They started with those values, but didn't factor in ROF. It took me literally 5 minutes to figure out why the heat system was borked versus the TT system. Why couldn't they?

The TT is kinda balanced. Not really that well tbh. But unfortunately still better than MW:O at the moment.

Krivvan, on 06 November 2012 - 05:06 AM, said:

Doesn't the TT rely on BV in order to balance? Without that it's one of the most imbalanced tabletop games ever.

Well it actually relies on two or more people trying to have fun and setting up a fair and challenging scenario
But of course for the various Battletech leagues that exist/existed, you needed CV/BV/BV2.
It was part of the balance. Like the matchmaking should be in MW:O.

Edited by John Norad, 06 November 2012 - 05:28 AM.

[Rifter]

Lanessar, on 06 November 2012 - 05:11 AM, said:

Not in a single-salvo fire scenario. The mitigating factors of balance are: weapon damage, weapon heat, heat dissipation. You're thinking matchmaking, which is an entirely different gripe than that of how a mech functions basically, against, say, a rock.

Matchmaking will be even more broken. The contribution of one build versus another will be even more broken because the base mech function of heat dissipation is wonky.

If this was brought up in CB (and I was in beta for 4 months), dear lord.

Oh it was brought up, me and abrahams were screaming the heat system was messed up(due to ROF increse) since forever but no one wanted to listen or do anything about it. And now look where its got us.

[Hexcaliber]

Blizz003, on 05 November 2012 - 10:01 PM, said:

@OP

ok so wait... a SHS dissipates 1 heat.
you think a DHS should dissipate 2 heat. (makes sense, its in the name)
You are complaining that DHS only dissipate 1.4 heat which is a "downgrade"????
Last time I checked, 1.4 was bigger than 1.
1.4 times bigger, oddly enough...
They should paint hexes on the battlefield and everyone can move and shoot in sequence.

Just double checked my math... 1.4 is still bigger than 1.

lets ignore for a moment that double heat sinks require an initial investment of 1.5 million, and three times as many cbills to fit heat sink for heat sink, and also results in increased repair costs. Your logic wouldn't fall flat on its face if DBl HS required the same number of critical's to equip.

They do not, each double heat sink takes three critical slots, unlike SHS that require one. Suddenly, your two doubles requiring six critical's with a combined heat dissipation of 2.8 cannot match the three singles that occupy half the slots. Given that slots are limited on pretty much all mechs this presents something of a problem. While those two doubles do indeed require less weight to fit, the fact they require 3 crit's each, drastically reduces the number of mechs and builds where the use of double heat sinks is worth their penalty and costs.

It is so bad at 1.4, that many builds are worse using double heat sinks in place of singles.

Double heat sinks were supposed to make large laser, ER large laser and PPC builds more useful, they don't, and after the patch with the increase to pulse heat build up, any build using pulse will become far less heat efficient too, further polarizing the games viable builds and weapons.

Edited by Hexcaliber, 06 November 2012 - 05:35 AM.

[Ghosth]

There have been "Hints" that instead of looking at TT rules we players should be looking at Solaris rules.

Well If they want to run Solaris rules we should have Solaris Maps, and Solaris type gameplay. Not what we have now.

Even then what they have built is still broken as long as all large energy weapons produce more heat than they can deal with.

Dev's "Please" balance heat with the rate of fire, or drop the rate of fire.

There have been several dev choices thus far that absolutely boggle the mind. This last one about DHS is no exception.
It certainly is not going to fix what is broken.

The worst of it is they have so much of it right. If they would just balance heat, instead of using it as giant club.

[Mangonel TwoSix]

I have not read this entire thread so I am sure someone probably made the point I am about to make somewhere but here goes.

Just chill out a bit. Yes the change to 1.4 heat value is going to hurt. However as the Devs have said it is much easier to tweak up the scale than down it.

There *had* to be a change. If they allowed true Double Heat Sinks into the game medium and heavy mechs would be pretty over powered, they would be able to deliver an awesome amount of firepower compared to assaults.

While playing around with the math I think that a 1.4 adjustment is a little too low, somewhere around 1.5 or 1.6 would work well I think. Like the OP was getting at, if you have more than 5 DHS on your mech right now, when the patch goes live your heat scale is going to be worse than it is currently (even with the messed up engine heat sink value).

Another solution would be to make the DHS only take 2 crit slots. This would shift the limiting factor for assaults more towards weight than crit space (like the current situation with smaller mechs). By 'attacking' the issue from both ends it would be easier to find a balance that is acceptable in regards to both ends of the weight scale.

[KharnZor]

Krivvan, on 05 November 2012 - 09:04 PM, said:

AC2s to AC20s are very useful. LRMs are strong, perhaps a few steps under OP, but they aren't unstoppable. And your point about lag armour has nothing to do with small lasers, it has to do with small fast moving mechs. They could be packing medium lasers and it would be the same thing (and most end up doing more damage via streaks). What Helmer was referring to was when Swaybacks ran around at high speed with 11 small lasers firing constantly getting instant head killshots.

11 small lasers firing non stop on a mech traveling at 138kph...was fun at the time but i don't miss it.
Its beta, things are still open to adjustment.

[MrPenguin]

Krivvan, on 06 November 2012 - 12:29 AM, said:

Maybe my memory is slightly faulty, but didn't MW4 pretty much take all the numbers (crit slots, tonnage, damage, range, everything) from the TT, throw them out the window, and just make a game the way they wanted to? And that's supposed to be more of a Mechwarrior game?

Seriously, this is almost childish. Look at any other video game series that radically changes everything in the game in each sequel. People don't complain about changing damage numbers and things behind the scenes like that. What really matters is that the theme is Battletech. The devs didn't say they were going to stick with TT values, they said they were going to start with TT values and change them.

Yep!
But OP will never acknowledge that
Thats why its mental to say that this isn't a mechwarrior game. Technically speaking, this follows battletech more then mechwarrior 4 did haha.

Edited by MrPenguin, 06 November 2012 - 05:45 AM.

[Xanquil]

My issue with heat is that it Never was an issue in TT, It could be but most mechs were made to avoid overheating. (damage to HS and engine not withstanding)

As it stands right now PGi trying to make a heat an issue has made weapon balance all off. This is most ovious in trial mechs.
But instead of makeing the game better thay add DHS that arn't DHS and heat is still way to high on weapons..so thay increased it it on some of them,makeing it worse.

At 10 sHS my heat shuldn't even be effected if I fire 2 mLasers. at 10 DHS i should be able to fire a ERPPC and never overheat. This is basic to battletech, this is what is expected, but it isn't what we have. We have a system that requires 3+ times the amount of HS to run a mech at what it was intended to be at.

This has made the game something I looked foward to into something I wouldn't recomend to fans of battletech.

[Matthew Ace]

Mister Zeus said:

2.) As noted in the Nov. 6 patch commentary, Single Heat sinks increase maximum heat scale by 1 per single heat sink, while double heat sinks increase maximum heat scale by 2 per double heat sink. 20 double heat sinks thus increase maximum heat scale by 40, while 28 single heat sinks only increase it by 28. Thus, the Awesome 9M not only has 8 addition tons to play with from above, but it also can take more heat points before shut down (and thus gains more from Heat Containment than the 8Q).

Matthew Ace, on 06 November 2012 - 05:06 AM, said:

+2 to Heat Capacity, +0.14 to Heat Dissipation? I can live with this. I think a lot more people were up in arms about this because it was thought that Capacity is reduced to +1.4 each as well. I can't find the commentary stating the increase of Maximum Heat Capacity using DHS to remain at +2 each. Any links?

Need a confirmation.

Edited by Matthew Ace, 06 November 2012 - 05:49 AM.

[Fooooo]

Matthew Ace, on 06 November 2012 - 05:06 AM, said:

+2 to Heat Capacity, +0.14 to Heat Dissipation? I can live with this. I think a lot of people were up in arms about this because it was thought that Capacity is reduced to +1.4 each as well.

I can't find the commentary stating the increase of Maximum Heat Capacity using DHS to remain at +2 each. Any links?

The post is in the command Chair forums, the one about DHS.

http://mwomercs.com/...heat-sinks-dhs/

Heres a snippet that bryan posted (which is a quote from one of the lead guys who knows how the system works)

Quote

I’d like to expand on some information from an earlier post and provide more details on Standard and Double Heat Sinks.

First, let’s take a look at a Standard Heat Sink. It’s a pretty basic piece of equipment that weighs 1 ton, occupies 1 critical slot. Each Standard Heat Sink equipped on your Mech cools it by 0.1 heat/sec and increases the maximum heat threshold before you shut down by 1.

A Double Heat Sink also weighs 1 ton, but it occupies 3 critical slots. This means that you’re unable to fit them in a Mech’s head, center torso, or legs. The upside is that each one cools your Mech by 0.2 heat/sec and increases your maximum heat capacity by 2.

Also,
There has been no mention that the increase in maximum heat capacity of 2 that DHS give will be changed when they change to 0.14 heat dissipation. So I expect that to stay as is.

Edited by Fooooo, 06 November 2012 - 05:58 AM.