322 replies to this topic

[18 Inches of Hard Steel]

From what i see now laserboats with the heavy heat weapons (erppc, erlagre laser, etc.) are almost non-existant, however ballistics and lrms are all over. buffing dhs would help the large lasers even up with the lrm and ballistic dominance. examples are :


-the gauss cat, gauss makes almost no heat so buffing dhs wont help a gauss cat
-lrm and ballistic boats fill a lot of slots with the ammo and weapons so the space for stacks of extra dhs is very small
-our sad trial M9 awesome, some dhs will make it able to be used by newbies

[TruePoindexter]

wanderer, on 29 November 2012 - 11:55 AM, said:

I'd actually say that proper DHS would lead to more ballistics use.

I don't know if you've ever used a -4X 'Phract mounting quad AC/2's or the like, but those things heat up like mad. Getting DHS up and running properly would do wonders for extending their time of fire.

This is very true. Dual AC20's would also benefit very much from this. AC10's and AC5's tend to be cool enough.

[QuantumButler]

Odanan, on 29 November 2012 - 12:18 PM, said:

"With weapon recycle times being what they are" - you said it right. So nerf the rate of fire! (and make DHS 2.0)

It's absurd that mechs that have zero problem with heat in Battletech should overheat in this game.

They should have, you know, raised rate of fire but kept DPS values the same as TT.

So a PPC would fire a bunch of times in 10 seconds and do 10 points of damage in ten seconds, generating appropriate propotionate heat per shot as well. Then they wouldn't have needed to double armor values either.

An AC20 could fire 20 rounds in 10 seconds, each round dealing 1 point of damage, an AC2 would fire 2 rounds in ten seconds, etc.

Edited by QuantumButler, 29 November 2012 - 12:21 PM.

[Odanan]

wanderer, on 29 November 2012 - 11:55 AM, said:

I'd actually say that proper DHS would lead to more ballistics use.

I don't know if you've ever used a -4X 'Phract mounting quad AC/2's or the like, but those things heat up like mad. Getting DHS up and running properly would do wonders for extending their time of fire.

It makes no sense a AC/2 to make heat. In TT you could use 10 of them and your mech would still be cool...

[TruePoindexter]

QuantumButler, on 29 November 2012 - 12:20 PM, said:

They should have, you know, raised rate of fire but kept DPS values the same as TT.

So a PPC would fire a bunch of times in 10 seconds and do 10 points of damage in ten seconds, generating appropriate propotionate heat per shot as well. Then they wouldn't have needed to double armor values either.

An AC20 could fire 20 rounds in 10 seconds, each round dealing 1 point of damage, an AC2 would fire 2 rounds in ten seconds, etc.

That changes the behavior of the weapons from burst to dps weapons though. The point of the AC20 is the single big hit and not a storm of small hits.

[Lefty Lucy]

Odanan, on 29 November 2012 - 12:22 PM, said:

It makes no sense a AC/2 to make heat. In TT you could use 10 of them and your mech would still be cool...

But in TT the gun is next to worthless due to low damage generation. In MWO the gun is far more useful, but generates commensurately higher heat.

[QuantumButler]

TruePoindexter, on 29 November 2012 - 12:23 PM, said:

That changes the behavior of the weapons from burst to dps weapons though. The point of the AC20 is the single big hit and not a storm of small hits.

They could have multiple models of AC20, one maker builds a giant fuckoff chaingun, the other a huge cannon that shoots once and takes ten secs to reload, both considered AC20s because they deal 20 points of damage in ten seconds.

Or go halfway, like in Mechwarrior 3, where all regular Acs fired a burst of 5 rounds, damage per round being based on the AC rating.

AC5 was 5 rounds of 1 damage shots, AC10 was 5 x 2, AC20 5 x 4

Edited by QuantumButler, 29 November 2012 - 12:27 PM.

[Odanan]

QuantumButler, on 29 November 2012 - 12:20 PM, said:

They should have, you know, raised rate of fire but kept DPS values the same as TT.

So a PPC would fire a bunch of times in 10 seconds and do 10 points of damage in ten seconds, generating appropriate propotionate heat per shot as well. Then they wouldn't have needed to double armor values either.

An AC20 could fire 20 rounds in 10 seconds, each round dealing 1 point of damage, an AC2 would fire 2 rounds in ten seconds, etc.

Not exactly like that, but I see a great idea here.

Let's say in MWO we fire 3x as we would fire in TT per turn. If you don't want a slower shooting game, divide all weapons damage (TT values) and heat by 3!
No double armor, no ammo mess.

You can't (I'm talking to you, PGI) just make all weapons fire 3x more and keep the dissipation the same (or even less, as you are doing with the DHS).

Am I asking too much to have a competitive mech (that it's not a Gauss boat) who doesn't overheat?

[CodeNameValtus]

Lefty Lucy, on 29 November 2012 - 10:05 AM, said:

The initial reason given for why DHS could not be "true" DHS was the oft-cited "3 second Jenner" that could, according to a dev comment "core an atlas in under 3 seconds." Well, for two patches, the 3 second Jenner has been the norm, as most light and medium mechs get by with just the 10 engine-mounted DHS. They *already have* 2.0 DHS, and the only thing game-breaking about jenners has not been damage output, but survivability due to poor net code.

However, larger mechs that have the tonnage to mount more DHS do not have the full benefit of their DHS. A prime victim of this is the current trial assault, the AWS-9M. With 20 DHS, its dissipation is only 3.4 HPS. A single ERPPC has heat generation of 4.33 HPS. This thing has 3 of them plus other weapons.

Even with "true" DHS, it would not be able to keep a single ERPPC cool, so I think it is clear to see that this would not "break" the mech. However, it would make more well-designed mechs far more useable, and bring heavies and assaults into better parity with light chassis.

I thought the community already proved them wrong with this information well before they A) community found out it was less than 2.0 DHS, and before PGI announced they were 1.4 DHS. By math and science, there was really no reason that DHS were ever really going to be 'broken' or 'OP' as 2.0 if they aren't at 1.4....

[QuantumButler]

Odanan, on 29 November 2012 - 12:28 PM, said:

Not exactly like that, but I see a great idea here.

Let's say in MWO we fire 3x as we would fire in TT per turn. If you don't want a slower shooting game, divide all weapons damage (TT values) and heat by 3!
No double armor, no ammo mess.

You can't (I'm talking to you, PGI) just make all weapons fire 3x more and keep the dissipation the same (or even less, as you are doing with the DHS).

Am I asking too much to have a competitive mech (that it's not a Gauss boat) who doesn't overheat?

Yeah, that's really what I was getting at.

Certain things like lrms and srms wouldn't quite work that way, unless we lowered their damage per missile and just gave them triple ammo, so they had the same potential damage as they did in TT.

[Thuzel]

Asyres, on 29 November 2012 - 12:11 PM, said:

I feel like the 1.4sinks are at (or near to) an ideal point. Smaller energy weapons feel about right, even in large concentrations. What doesn't work is big energy weapons. Buffing DHS to 2.0 would make the big energy weapons more usable, but would also buff the little ones (which don't need a buff).

A better solution is to lower the heat on big energy weapons (especially (ER)PPCs and ERLLs), possibly tweaking other values in the process.

I'd actually argue that it's the small energy weapons that need to be brought down a bit, which if done in conjunction with correcting DHS would bring it all to a good balance.

small lasers and medium lasers are overpowered in my opinion. In TT, they were blanced by the fact that you couldn't concentrate them into a single hit location so they were acceptable. In MWO however, concentrating 4 or more medium lasers into a single hit location just happens naturally, so what used to be a major limiting factor isn't holding them back anymore. That's compounded by them being so light it's trivial to add in groups of them.

Also, considering most encounters happen within close range (unlike in TT), and even the range limitations of small and medium lasers has become mostly moot.

Compare 2 medium lasers to a single large and the imbalance becomes obvious. You get nearly the same specs for less than half the weight. The only restrictive factor that remains are the number of hardpoints on your mech, which isn't really a valid restriction due to the number of mechs with large numbers of energy hardpoints.

[Lefty Lucy]

Thuzel, on 29 November 2012 - 12:35 PM, said:

I'd actually argue that it's the small energy weapons that need to be brought down a bit, which if done in conjunction with correcting DHS would bring it all to a good balance.

small lasers and medium lasers are overpowered in my opinion. In TT, they were blanced by the fact that you couldn't concentrate them into a single hit location so they were acceptable. In MWO however, concentrating 4 or more medium lasers into a single hit location just happens naturally, so what used to be a major limiting factor isn't holding them back anymore. That's compounded by them being so light it's trivial to add in groups of them.

Also, considering most encounters happen within close range (unlike in TT), and even the range limitations of small and medium lasers has become mostly moot.

Compare 2 medium lasers to a single large and the imbalance becomes obvious. You get nearly the same specs for less than half the weight. The only restrictive factor that remains are the number of hardpoints on your mech, which isn't really a valid restriction due to the number of mechs with large numbers of energy hardpoints.

I'm not sure why people think ML are overpowered. They're a backup weapon. My highest damage mech has a gauss, 2x SRM6, and 2 ML. I have another cataphract that runs 5 ML and an AC10, and its hard to pull even half the damage, despite having more medium lasers.

HBK-4Ps are dangerous if you're standing still for too long and can't aim for their right torso, but for the most part medium lasers aren't anything to worry about. They are a backup weapon.

[197mmCannon]

I would rather they balanced heat in other ways.

bring other weapons down.

I like having to manage my heat and if you want to run ballistics (to get away from heat) then you have to manage ammo and weight on your mech.

If we keep buffing everything then everything will end up stronger than it needs to be.

[Bors Mistral]

Just set all Triple-Slot-Heatsinks to 1.8 - no need for actual 2.0 on everything.

1.8 is a good tipping point that will reduce the effectiveness of certain light builds people are having fits about, and in the same time will enable heavier mechs to use the higher-end energy guns. There was plenty of math posted on the subject already. Not to mention the projectile speed increase that some ballistics will be getting, further reducing any current advantages lazors have.

Edited by Bors Mistral, 29 November 2012 - 12:44 PM.

[Thuzel]

Odanan, on 29 November 2012 - 12:28 PM, said:

Not exactly like that, but I see a great idea here.

Let's say in MWO we fire 3x as we would fire in TT per turn. If you don't want a slower shooting game, divide all weapons damage (TT values) and heat by 3!
No double armor, no ammo mess.

You can't (I'm talking to you, PGI) just make all weapons fire 3x more and keep the dissipation the same (or even less, as you are doing with the DHS).

Am I asking too much to have a competitive mech (that it's not a Gauss boat) who doesn't overheat?

The root of the problem is the base model they chose to use.

They should have been consistent across the board when they started changing things, but they weren't: They increased firing rates, armor, and ammo, but kept heat dissipation at the same rate as TT. They kept the minimum on the PPC, but left it off the gauss. They dropped the round velocity of heavier autocannon, but made the gauss as fast as a PPC.

This is why we have so many balance issues right now. I'm not saying MWO needs to mimic TT, because MWO isn't tabletop, so it needs to be treated differently. What I AM saying is that when you take a balanced system and make major changes to 2 out of 3 balancing elements, you're asking for problems.

[Lefty Lucy]

Daemian, on 29 November 2012 - 12:40 PM, said:

I would rather they balanced heat in other ways.

bring other weapons down.

I like having to manage my heat and if you want to run ballistics (to get away from heat) then you have to manage ammo and weight on your mech.

If we keep buffing everything then everything will end up stronger than it needs to be.

Umm... let's say a mech has 15 DHS, with 10 of those mounted in the engine. Currently it produces 10*2+1.4*5=27 heat dissipation. Bumping out-of-engine heat sinks up to 2.0 would only increase its heat dissipation by 3 to 30. This would not make it so you don't have to "manage your heat." It would only be a slight buff to assault and heavy mechs that cannot rely entirely on in-engine heat sinks.

[Asatruer]

TruePoindexter, on 29 November 2012 - 10:40 AM, said:

To be fair - it was broken in MW3. It followed TT rules fairly closely and so in the upper tiers of play lasers reigned supreme. 12 ER Medium Laser and 16 ER Small Laser boats made up the vast majority of the field unless energy weapons were removed from play (in the league games you could bid on what weapons were allowed).

TruePoindexter, on 29 November 2012 - 10:57 AM, said:

I kinda disagree though. MWO is the first Mechwarrior game where lasers weren't the obvious weapon of choice. Other weapons are viable and in some cases preferred. Lets face it but TT rules were more or less broken since they never tried to make weapons viable or keep things balanced.

BattleTech weapon balance was broken? I will admit it had some balance issues, but mostly it was fine.

Let us have a look at 3 PPCs (an Awesome) vs 3 AC/10 (I have no idea, some strange custom AC/10 Awesome...)
Both do the same 30 points of damage, both are similar in range (6/12/18 for the PPC vs 5/10/15 for the AC/10).
The 3 PPCs are 21 tons, produces 30 heat so requires 20 out of engine heat sinks for a total of 41 tons.
The 3 AC/10s are 36 tons, produces 9 heat so requires no out of engine HS, but with 6 tons of ammo becomes 42 tons.

Now have a look at 4 MLs vs an AC/20.
Both have the same range 3/6/9, the 4MLs and the AC/20 do both do 20 points of damage.
The 4MLs are 4 tons, and produce 12 heat requiring 2 out of engine heat sinks for a total of 6 tons.
The AC/20 is 14 tons, and produces 7 heat so requires no additional out of engine HS, but requires 2 tons of ammo (that is what an HBK-4G has) for a total of 16 tons.


The triple PPC vs triple AC/10 mech looks pretty balanced, with the AC mech being able to move and not overheat slowly and not having to put up with a minimum range, while the PPC mech can do a higher average damage slightly farther in each range category, since it has a better hit-chance by having it's extreme of short range be at the low end of the AC/10's medium range.

Looking at the 4MLs vs one AC/20 shows a completely different story. If you look at the characteristics and values mentioned, clearly TT balance favors the MLs, but in reality TT does not favor these 4MLs over the AC/20. The reason TT does not favor the 4MLs is because in TT, they are doing 5 points of damage to up to four different random hit locations on the target, while the AC/20 is sticking its 20 points of damage to one spot every time it hits.

The reason MW3's faithful representation of TT weapon characteristics and values was broken and favored boating many medium and small lasers, or even MGs, had nothing to do with the TT weapon values, but instead is because MW3 has the same sort of weapon convergence that MWO has where 4 MLs will all hit in the same spot, thus making packing 4MLs better than packing one AC/20. This is due, not to some broken imbalance in the TT weapons, but rather these first-person mouse aiming games' use of convergence and discarding a fundamental weapon balancing feature of TT BattleTech.

PGI's solution to the problem seems to be the attempt to limit how often the 4MLs could be fired compared to the one AC/20 by nerfing heat dissipation, but still they gave the 4MLs a faster RoF, and with the weight difference of 10 tons, 10 tons of HS could be added to cool those 4MLs down to the point where they can be fire twice in 10 seconds and overheating a little bit, or three times and overheat a moderate amount, compared to the AC/20s ability to fire twice in 10 seconds and only overheat a tiny amount. Sounds about fair, since they now weigh the same, but...

The 3 PPCs vs 3 AC/10s heat situation looks similar on the surface, as there are not enough tons saved by going the PPC route to get enough heatsinks to fire the 3 PPCs more than once every ten seconds, while the 3 AC/10s are similarly limited to once every 10 seconds and not overheating. Drop one weapon from each build and replace the weight with HS.The PPC mech gains 7HS only enough to fire the now two PPCs around one more time every 20 seconds. The AC/10 mech gains 14HS and the ability to fire the now two AC/10s around one more time every 10 seconds. Drop this down to one PPC vs one AC/10 and the PPC mech needs to spend 20 tons on HS outside of the engine to fire on every cooldown, while the AC/10 needs to spend 0 tons on HS outside of the engine.

TruePoindexter, on 29 November 2012 - 10:57 AM, said:

Believe it or not most of the balance we appreciated in TT was from the lore dictating what was acceptable not the game's mechanics.

See the 4MLs vs the 1 AC/20 above, no lore balancing needed there... But when you start talking about the more advanced tech introduced outside of the original core rules, you do have a point that they were not really balanced in the same fashion.
Which is why BattleTech balanced matches not using mech weight class mirroring like MWO, and why they gave up the original total side tonnage balancing, but instead opted for a Battle Value system that could account for the fact that not everything of the same weight is equal.

Two PPCs vs one Gauss Rifle for example.
The 2 PPCs do 20 damage for 20 heat, up to 18 hexes at a cost of 24 tons (7+7+10HS)
The Gauss Rifle does 15 damage for 1 heat, up to 22 hexes at the cost of 19 tons (15+4ammo) and has tons and heat dissipation to spare for additional weapons.

PPCs doing 10 points of damage to two random locations, to the Gauss Rifles 15 to one looks almost balanced, but since the Gauss ranges the PPCs for less over-all tons, the Gauss is clearly the better weapon. This is where BVs come in. If we built an HBK-4G with the AC/20 and 3 HS replaced by a Gauss Rifle with 4 tons of ammo, it ends up being around a BV of around 1153. Take the same mech, strip the weapons, and give it two PPCs, 10 heatsinks, and a Small Laser, and downgrade the engine to a 150 and the BV is 964.

Edited by Asatruer, 30 November 2012 - 12:34 PM.

[TruePoindexter]

QuantumButler, on 29 November 2012 - 12:25 PM, said:

They could have multiple models of AC20, one maker builds a giant fuckoff chaingun, the other a huge cannon that shoots once and takes ten secs to reload, both considered AC20s because they deal 20 points of damage in ten seconds.

If memory serves in lore this is actually how it is. I actually like this idea.

Edited by TruePoindexter, 29 November 2012 - 01:17 PM.

[Asatruer]

QuantumButler, on 29 November 2012 - 12:25 PM, said:

They could have multiple models of AC20, one maker builds a giant fuckoff chaingun, the other a huge cannon that shoots once and takes ten secs to reload, both considered AC20s because they deal 20 points of damage in ten seconds.

TruePoindexter, on 29 November 2012 - 01:17 PM, said:

If memory serves in lore this is actually how it is. I actually like this idea.

Garth answered a question about this in one of the QAs

Garth Erlam, on 26 November 2012 - 10:34 AM, said:

Q: Is there any chance in perhaps seeing different versions of the current autocannon's perhaps like 5 round burst ac 20 (4 damage per shell for example) AC 10 2 round burst (5 damage per shell) and etc?... [Ashnod]
A: Currently no, though we think that might work well for the RAC weapons. [Garth]

Personally I really do not like the idea... but it would be interesting to see which AC/20 people gravitate towards, the 20 damage every 4 seconds, the 10 damage every 2 seconds, the 5 damage every 1 seconds, or the 2.5 damage every 0.5 seconds one.

I think one of the issues that would come up from having different models of AC/20 is that people would wonder why it is that the Chemjet Gun that shoots once every 4 seconds is the model that comes in LBX and UAC formats, but the Crusher Super Heavy Cannon that shoots once every second does not come in the LBX or UAC formats.

Edited by Asatruer, 29 November 2012 - 01:40 PM.

[CarnifexMaximus]

Yes all the way. I remember back to those dark days after pgi told us that double HS were not going to be actuall doubles... Something was written up by a dev stating (I paraphrase) "were gonna start at 1.4 and work out way up. Scaling up is easier than scalin down".... Well here we are, a month or more after that statement has been made. Something needs to happen. I say bump em' up to 1.6, 1.7 to taste if a full 2.0 is viewed a a bit much. Gradual increases are maybe a good idea here. I would hate to be given full 2.0 DHS only to have it taken away next week.