425 replies to this topic

[Lee]

MuFasa, on 07 November 2012 - 01:10 PM, said:

Im probably going to get flamed beyond belief for this. But I cant for the life of me figure out why with every patch the game is all of a sudden TOTALLY broken in the eye's of some folks around here. It's like their glass is always half empty vs being half full. Instead of constructive input it is always this intweb rage. I swear sometimes reading these forums I think I am playing this game with some 2 year olds.

Here is a hint, we are playing a beta, that means things can and do change. Now, we can debate weather the game is a release or not, I very likely will agree with you. But release or not things can and WILL change more than they stay the same.

I wont disagree with many of the complaints, releasing the Artemis system and the return of the old original missile flight path without anything that will allow people to combat against these changes was in my opinion a bad call. I HOPE that the data they are collecting this week will show them, short of banging their own heads against a wall this was NOT one of the smarter things they could have done. The difference is I guess the approach, how it's handled. With each patch a whole group of people whose builds have been tweaked to fit the current system are invalidated and instead of adapting and changing with the game, they come to the forums and rage... Come state your issue, and see what happens, doesn't mean the dev's or for that matter anyone here will agree, doesn't mean they won't either. But the place would be a bit easier to tolerate than it is now.

Just an idea

Oh, and if you're gona quit.... can I have your stuff?

Probably because Battletech and previous Mechwarrior games sorted these issues out DECADES AGO. Each patch feels like a reinvention of the wheel, rather than, "Hey, how about we stick to the core canon values for all of this stuff and ignore the trolls until EVERYTHING IS IN AND WORKING before tweaking numbers."

The current iteration of the game honestly feels like 'people who can shoot straight' are getting screwed over, while 'people who need a fire and forget weapon to kill stuff' are getting double damage LRMs and stupid-fast lock-on systems with death from above attack angles to kill people hiding behind cover. Lock needs to break as soon as someone moves behind cover, not linger for a few seconds and allow people to fire off a full volley of missiles.

I have to assume PGI doesn't have many experienced QA people working there, or perhaps all of their QA guys are SO good at using lasers that the devs constantly think they need to nerf them.

[AlanEsh]

Yeah I checked my Atlas with SHS and noted 27 heatsinks (with engine). Then I calculated what I would have with DHS -- 28. WOW. Nice return on my investment.

Whine said, I expect they'll bump that up to 1.6 or something so that there is -some- benefit to setting that 1.5mil Cbills on fire and flushing down the toilet.

[Lee]

That said, DHS are worth it for most builds, assuming you set up your kit right to balance things out. I'm able to run bigger lasers, but it feels like 1.6 would be a lot more reasonable than 1.4. 1.4 just feels like a severe nerf to people who favor short-range brawling with lasers, expecially considering LRM boats get to use DHS on top of endo and artemis.

Sorry, but if I'm good enough to dodge from rock to rock to avoid the damn LRM spam, you sure as hell better reward that hard work with full-on DHS so I can melt those lazy ******** at short range.

[Snailio]

I think one thing that is missing from this thread is mention of the nerf to pulse lasers. So not only were DHS nerfed, so were pulse lasers. This means if you were running a pulse laser build, you got double nerfed. Between the new level of generated heat of pulse lasers, and the 1.4 DHS, pulse lasers have become nearly unusable in most builds. Meanwhile LRMs got a buff...

hilarious.

[Lee]

Angelicon, on 07 November 2012 - 01:47 PM, said:

Yeah I checked my Atlas with SHS and noted 27 heatsinks (with engine). Then I calculated what I would have with DHS -- 28. WOW. Nice return on my investment.

Whine said, I expect they'll bump that up to 1.6 or something so that there is -some- benefit to setting that 1.5mil Cbills on fire and flushing down the toilet.

Yeah, an equivalent 28 heatsinks, but how many TONS did you free up for ammo or more weapon variety? That's the only thing keeping the current iteration of DHS remotely worth it.

[Lee]

Canon LRM damage is 1.0 per missile. Double heatsink efficiency is 2.0.

MWO LRM damage is 2.0 per missile. Double heatsink efficiency is 1.4.

Do the math and think about how this affects guys who favor lasers.

[DONTOR]

Grok, on 07 November 2012 - 01:02 PM, said:

Can I have my CBills back? I spent a long time getting the 3 million to upgrade my two mechs, I could have got a new mech if I had known...wasting peoples time is a good way to put them off the game.

If something is getting patched to such a degree I fell a refund is in order.

You want a refund of C - Bills? 0_o

[Solkar]

removed due to error in my mech history

Edited by Solkar, 07 November 2012 - 02:04 PM.

[EmGooser]

I approve that double heat sinks are 1.4 and not 2.0. All games have weapon balance issues and if they were going to make all double heat sinks actually sink twice as much then heat would not be a factor once you have double heat sinks with the current heat balance on weapons.

That being said they had 2 options here. First would be to up the heat on weapons, but doing this would completely make all trial mechs or any mechs with SHS near useless. Second would to make the DHS only dissipate a lesser amount. This option would allow the DHS not completely remove all need for heat and still allow the SHS mechs not be completely useless.

In short, given the options they made the right call. It is better to see threads like this where you are just being upset about the word "double" and the fact it is not the exact same as the table top. At least then the game itself is still balanced on a heat management level.

[ZivyTerc]

Double HS are supposed to allow for stronger builds with bigger DPS (e.g. to face clans more effectively), not to take away all your CBills and crit slots and leave you where you started with SHS (heatwise). It is just broken.

[Snailio]

EmGooser, on 07 November 2012 - 02:27 PM, said:

I approve that double heat sinks are 1.4 and not 2.0. All games have weapon balance issues and if they were going to make all double heat sinks actually sink twice as much then heat would not be a factor once you have double heat sinks with the current heat balance on weapons.

That being said they had 2 options here. First would be to up the heat on weapons, but doing this would completely make all trial mechs or any mechs with SHS near useless. Second would to make the DHS only dissipate a lesser amount. This option would allow the DHS not completely remove all need for heat and still allow the SHS mechs not be completely useless.

In short, given the options they made the right call. It is better to see threads like this where you are just being upset about the word "double" and the fact it is not the exact same as the table top. At least then the game itself is still balanced on a heat management level.

Totally disagree that heat management is balanced. They completely made a pulse laser build nonviable, in favor of missile builds.

[Elder Thorn]

Ogir, on 07 November 2012 - 11:29 AM, said:

So, with the newest patch, the devs decided to lower the efficiency of double heatsinks to 1.4 BECAUSE THEY ****** UP in the first place, and NOW think it might be better if DHS are less efficient, because then lasers would be actually USEFUL again.

So, I paid 1,5M for my Awesome to get DHS, so i could improve the overall HS to 42(21 installed, times 2 = 42). I did not choose Endo-Steel, because I got more out of DHS... i thought.

But NOW, because SOME DEVS THINK it might be better, if DHS do lower heat dissipation, all i get are 29.4 Heatsinks.
I remind you that an awesome comes with 28 HS PREINSTALLED!

So I paid 1.5M do get 1.4 ******* MORE HEATSINKS?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

And STILL 3 Slots? RLY?

Why dont you just add a SELFDESTRUCT button to the trigger of anything else than ballistics, so people only use LRM boats?!
Because thats what the DEVs obviously want MWO to be... "Spam missiles and win".
So we have 3!!!! Systems to increase the missile span, and only 1 to lower it? WHERE IS THE ******* ECM!?

Why dont you just make all LRMS search and destroy, and why not also heat seeking, so ppl only have to pull the trigger, without any targeting...

This game is getting more and more ******** with every patch.

my Double Heatsinks are quite usefull. Very usefull. Don't know where your problem is

[waysted]

The effectiveness of heat sinks has a direct relationship to the amount of heat sinks a mech must mount to remain viable. Typically, the heavier the mech the more weaponry it carries. Assaults & Heavies are pre-nerfed because of the design of the DHS in MWO. The fact that DHS are merely 1.4 (1.61) has relatively little impact on the lights & mediums in this game. Would a higher heat efficiency on the DHS help those mechs, of course, but the impact would be nothing compared to the impact on heavier mechs. The tonnage and critical slots consumed by these "double" heat sinks hampers these heavier mech designs.


At worst DHS efficiency should be set to 1.75, so with the 15% boost from the trees you'd end up with 2.0125 DHS. The current 1.4 DHS are a direct nerf to Assault & Heavy mechs. They directly limit the viability of certain weapon systems and builds..

[Cynwulf]

the problem is they nerf a weapon because a cat can put six of them on there thus it effects folks that might only put two on which no one ever complained about. The fix should of been to the cat period not to streak srm.

[Egomane]

After playing with my Jenner, equiped with 15 double heat sinks, I now see the problem, the Devs encountered. Even with 15 DHS I can now fire my two medium and two small lasers without ever breaking a sweat. Shutdowns, unless I initiate them myself, never happen again. This is the first mech, since the GaussCat, that truely runs cold, even on caustic.

[ZodiacX]

Egomane, on 07 November 2012 - 03:30 PM, said:

After playing with my Jenner, equiped with 15 double heat sinks, I now see the problem, the Devs encountered. Even with 15 DHS I can now fire my two medium and two small lasers without ever breaking a sweat. Shutdowns, unless I initiate them myself, never happen again. This is the first mech, since the GaussCat, that truely runs cold, even on caustic.

The way it see it is that because the devs left mech customization so open with regards to weapons, there is no good way to balance everything. For example, in MW4 there were slot allotments for weapon types as opposed to just the hardpoint system. This meant that while you had some flexibility to your build, there was a stricter limit on what weapons could be used. This meant that you didn't have scenarios where a Dragon can't use an AC/20 but a catapult can use 2. Heck even a raven can load out an AC/20...

I'm not trying to belly ache here, just stating that because of the freedom we get with building mechs there are inherent problems with trying to balance weapons in a way that does not either eliminate the utility of light mechs or over-penalize assault mechs for having so much tonnage. Perhaps a work around is to start restricting crit-slots available based on weight class or even on a chassis-by-chassis basis.

[AlanEsh]

lee, on 07 November 2012 - 01:51 PM, said:

Yeah, an equivalent 28 heatsinks, but how many TONS did you free up for ammo or more weapon variety? That's the only thing keeping the current iteration of DHS remotely worth it.

None. I ran out of crit space with nothing left to put on the mech. I understand the "purpose" of DHS, but they're **** for heavy mechs because of the crit shortage they cause for no net gain in heat dissipation.

[ZodiacX]

Angelicon, on 07 November 2012 - 05:36 PM, said:

None. I ran out of crit space with nothing left to put on the mech. I understand the "purpose" of DHS, but they're **** for heavy mechs because of the crit shortage they cause for no net gain in heat dissipation.

DHS are not intended to be space savers, IS DHS especially. They are purely for the weight benefit. Therefore, any mech which finds itself with lots of open space should benefit. For comparison:

Endo-Steel on an Atlas saves 5 tons but uses 14 crit slots.

Meanwhile, 5 tons of DHS (outside of your engine) uses 15 slots and dissipate the equivalent of 7 SHS. Now include integrated HS (assume 10) and you have equivalent of 21 SHS for 15 DHS. Net saving of 1 ton at the cost of 1 extra crit slot relative to Endo-Steel.

It can be seen without debate that the ES upgrade is most useful on Heavies and Assault. If I'm not reading into this incorrectly, the DHS balance gives mediums and lights an equivalent weight saving upgrade.

Currently, FF is the least beneficial of the upgrades on all mechs.

Again I should note, personally I feel that 0.14 is too low and it should be brought back up perhaps around 1.55 0.155 if they are that concerned about balance. (Yes, I know DHS stands for double heat sinks... blah blah blah...)

Edited by ZodiacX, 07 November 2012 - 06:01 PM.

[Das Wudone]

not sure about u guys but i dont have heat problems at all with 16 dhs on my cent-AL. pre-patch on caustic my mech actually had a harder time cooling down. now i can constantly fire all my weapons for much longer and wait lesser to cool my mech down. in fact i havent overheated at all for the 1st day i tested the new dhs even tho i thought it was gona be muchx2 worse.

i did notice that mplasers had their heat fixed back to how it originally was but theyre not useless at all. i dont boat them however so im guessing the problem lies in boating pulse lasers in large quantities.

bottom line here is mechs cool down faster now but requires a necessary amt of heatsinks / dhs to do so. i feel for the heavier mech pilots for not being able to gear up bigger weapons with dhs but think of it this way... it could be a balancing mechanic for the mediums/lights so they can stand up to the bigger mechs (just my opinion anyway).

[CocoaJin]

IronCossack, on 06 November 2012 - 02:56 PM, said:

They need to rename them from "Double Heat sinks" then.

Doube heat sinks could be referencing some other aspect other than dissipation rate..."double" could be double surface area, which would result in 2.8 increase in volume(hence 3 crit slots), and 1.4x increase in the length of the heat sink's sides. Perhaps we would be warranted 2x increase in heat dissipation if we had a corresponding increase in heat sink mass with the increase in volume. But since DHS and HS weigh the same, perhaps a decrease in heat dissipation below 2x is reasonable.

Maybe, the increase in heat sink contact area(1.4x) provides a corresponding increase in heat take up, but the lack of an increase in heat sink mass means no additional increase in conduction rate.

What ever the reason, Im ok with the pseudo-science of 1.4x, though I'd love to hear a more accurate scienctifc model for how doubling surface area but maintaining mass would affect heat dissipation.