108 replies to this topic

[HighTest]

focuspark, on 10 December 2012 - 12:39 PM, said:

You sir are looking for a single-player game. This is not that game.

Nothing to see here.

You're right. MWO should be more like checkers. Oh wait, you can get a king in checkers, and that would be too powerful...

Maybe rock-paper-scissors? Damn, that doesn't work either... one always beats another...

Oh, I know! MInesweeper! You should play Minesweeper! Every click is the same as the last!

But seriously. If every weapon was fully balanced, what's the point of even having different weapons? How do you balance for different ranges, knockback, explosions blocking your HUD, etc? Should weapons that shoot twice as far do half the damage? Half the heat too? How do you factor in knockback? Sure, missiles do lots of damage, but not all hit - how do you calculate the average DPS/missiles hit? How do you measure weapons you need to lead against ones you need to track on target? Heck, what about colour -- what if some players are red-green colorblind and can't tell if they are getting hit with a MLAS or SLAS? Might make a difference to attack vs run, right? Seriously, where do you draw the line?

C'mon. You can't possibly balance everything, so why try? Enjoy each weapon for it's unique experience, and don't use the stuff you don't like or can't use effectively. If some mech is tearing you apart with a different weapon, play differently or pick a different mech that can equip something. Don't like LRMS? Grab an ECM and load up on small lasers and heatsinks. Don't like PPCs? Get in under 90m. Or just load up on AC2s and snipe from 1200m using thermal imaging. This is a strategy game - gray matter goes a long way.

Maybe if PGI spent less time pandering to people crying "Balance, balance!" we'd have more in-game content, bug fixes, FPS improvements, economy corrections, maps where teams just don't run headlong into brawls, and stuff that actually matters.

Really, I think you'd be happier with Minesweeper.

And Mustrum, since you didn't troll, you can have a serious response.

Hardpoints do make a difference -- you're always limited to the slots available. Take a HBK-4P. Sure, it has 9 Energy slots. But you can't equip 9 ERPPCs, because, there just isn't enough weight for it. Or heat sinks (SHS or DHS) to cool it. So you load up on MLASes since you can max out your DPS. Guess what - no ECM, no range. Take it across some maps and see if you can even get it into close range against a LRM-and spotter-heavy team. So back to the mechlab and load up on ERLLASes -- damn, those are hot and heavy and burst DPS sucks.

And if the OP weapon of the day is the SRM6 or whatever, guess what, you're buying a new mech.

Hardpoints mean it's all about balance -- you can't just take the overpowered flavor-of-the-month weapon and load them in there.

MW as a franchise is more like chess than checkers. Sure, used properly against an improper defense, any one piece can dominate the board. But that doesn't mean you still can't easily wipe out the queen if you know what you're doing on the other side.

Now, if MWO actually HAD in-game team chat, shortcuts to team commands and stuff that would facilitate teamwork, you'd find stuff is probably way less unbalanced than you think. Too bad PGI is worrying about all the "balance, balance!" whiners. In fact, I'll bet that once team matching and communications get better, they're going to need to re-rebalance everything again anyway.

Besides, this thread is about DHS, and non-2.0x-DHS still make no sense.

Edited by HighTest, 10 December 2012 - 01:28 PM.

[aspect]

Who cares, really? So you get 2.0DHS and can do more damage/boat more PPCs/whatever, and so can everybody else, so the matches just become more twitchy and less strategic?

Except, of course, versus the people who are just starting...who we also NEED TO LIKE THE GAME TO KEEP IT RUNNING.

Horrifically unbalanced multiplayer games can be very fun (DayZ) and will encourage certain types of gamers to play more or buy more in order to get up to speed (like me). Unfortunately, this is a small group of people.

DHS is already mandatory for certain builds, but has enough drawbacks vs their performance to keep them being essential for pretty much everything, and to keep them from allowing well-equipped mechs to trump poorly-equipped mechs 100% of the time. I know that's not how real warfare works or how it works in BT or blah blah blah...this is a video game that I want to keep playing for a while, so some of you BT/lore-centric guys are going to have to suck it up and learn to play well with others.

[MustrumRidcully]

aspect, on 10 December 2012 - 03:26 PM, said:

Who cares, really? So you get 2.0DHS and can do more damage/boat more PPCs/whatever, and so can everybody else, so the matches just become more twitchy and less strategic?

I like my PPCs and ER PPCs to be useful. But you have a point here - better heat sinks will make the game more twitchy. But the unfortunate truth of Battletech during the Clan Invasion is that this is what will be happening, because all the new tech upgrades will raise the pace of the game. If there is only one "decent" speed of the game, then the game would have been better served to be set either in 3025, when DHS and ER weapons and all that power creep were still far off, or in the middle of the Clan Invasion (perhaps even in the aftermath?), where all the power creep tech is standard already. Not in the transition phase where all this new tech means genuine upgrades.

Or if you set your game in this timeline - you better have a well-though out concept on how to deal with it. Not in the middle of releasing DHS suddenly realizing that maybe they are too strong, and oops....

Quote

Except, of course, versus the people who are just starting...who we also NEED TO LIKE THE GAME TO KEEP IT RUNNING.

And they still have to face people with Engine "True Dubs", Endo Steel upgrades and mechs that are actually optimized for the current heat levels in this game.

There is so much wrong with the current user experience for beginners, on top of all that's wrong with weapon balance...

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 11 December 2012 - 01:40 AM.

[DivineEvil]

Again, DHS nerf has no effect on stomping noobs on Trial mechs. Not a tiny bit. The only way to counter thaat problem, is to improve matchmaking so that equal amount of trials is picked into match, and/or teams equalized by their absolute CBill cost.

Lazorback is also fine with 2.0 DHS, since all his firepower is in his shoulder, and can be easily withered into nothing. Nothing wrong with that. You can achieve same alpha power with other weapons.

DHS need to return to 2.0, so that heavy energy weapons are on the level with heavy ballistic weapons. As of now, there NO valid reason for them to be that way, their nerf is completely negative result. I challenge anyone to tell me their believes why DHS were downgraded, and I will tell why it doen't help.

[HighTest]

Aspect, that's exactly my point.

Why does the new user player experience suck?

- Tre trial mechs currently online overheat like crazy. So why not provide them with ones that don't (eg. 2.0x DHS)?
- Lousy matchmaking pitting newbies against guys with hundreds of matches under their belt fielding custom mechs.
- Bugs, crashes, FPS drops, yellow screens, black screens, bad netcode, and so on.
- Lack of maps, game modes, content, tooltips, on-line training modes, etc.

So I say stop messing around with 'balance', make DHS 2.0x, and just fix the glaringly bad issues with gameplay that are really at the core of the sub-optimal user experience first.

There will be plenty of time to tinker later. Heck, ask Blizzard - WoW has been around for ages and they still tinker with balance to this day. PGI will blow their brains out if everytime someone whines 'Balance, balance!' and they feel they must keep tinkering with stuff.

[MustrumRidcully]

Maybe they should just make Single Heat Sinks grant +0.2 Disssipation and +1 heat capacity, and Double Heat Sinks +0.2 Dissipation and +2 heat capacity. Then all the trial/stock mechs would work more closely to how they were intended to work, and Double Heat Sinks are relatively weak - but still provide a benefit if you can afford the crits.

[Ronson]

would not be simpler to :

DHS = weight 1.5x hs , occupying 2 x hs , and be 50% more effective


this is how DHS sounds right to me .

TL;DR all of the above and im sorry , but i am @ work.

[Shroomicide]

HighTest, on 11 December 2012 - 04:33 AM, said:

Why does the new user player experience suck?

- Tre trial mechs currently online overheat like crazy. So why not provide them with ones that don't (eg. 2.0x DHS)?
- Lousy matchmaking pitting newbies against guys with hundreds of matches under their belt fielding custom mechs.
- Bugs, crashes, FPS drops, yellow screens, black screens, bad netcode, and so on.
- Lack of maps, game modes, content, tooltips, on-line training modes, etc.

I agree with this completely. Despite having a great look to it playing for the first time, these are some glaring issues- and if you don't have a group or friends to run with, these are things which really start to annoy people without friends to complain to.

DHS 2.0 would make some interesting energy builds, and Ballistics/Missles would have competition. Right now, lasers and energy weapons are just something to fill up slots (for most people) while they build around their "powerful" hardpoints. DHS would still take up so many slots that it would be tough to accommodate, but it would make energy builds much more competitive. The trial Awesome would definitely benefit from DHS at the very least; 3 ERPPCs and SHS is just cruel to new people.

While I understand the issues with it, most energy builds still wouldn't dominate. The one which particularly springs to mind is the hunchback, which has the major weakness of weak side torsos or arms. Yes, energy doesn't require ammunition. Yes, lasers don't require as much exact precision. And yet, some sort of SRM/LRM Catapult and ballistic heavy mechs are the most popular besides scouts. Energy builds just don't field a lot of firepower, they can't fire continuously, weapons produce no shake or visual issues, and their limbs are much more exposed.

As it is now, the Atlas RS, for example, has two slots on each arm for energy weapons, but what are all Atlases/Atli built around? Their shoulder cannon and some sort of missile. I have yet to see more than 3-4 RS'es on the field, and why? Engine Slots obscuring the shoulder cannon, not as many missile hardpoints as the D-DC.

I think it would be nice if PGI at least tried it. If it was a total failure, it would be fixed within a week anyway. This is Beta, which means balancing, testing, and new content. What's the worst that could happen?

[Syllogy]

Shroomicide, on 11 December 2012 - 07:37 AM, said:

I think it would be nice if PGI at least tried it. If it was a total failure, it would be fixed within a week anyway. This is Beta, which means balancing, testing, and new content. What's the worst that could happen?

They did try it.

They ruled against it because 4 PPC's could non-stop Alpha strike on Standard 210 Engine DHS alone without overheating.

As much as people want to believe that the devs just throw a boatload of changes into a patch to see what happens, there is quite a bit of internal testing that we never see.

Edited by Syllogy, 11 December 2012 - 07:59 AM.

[Pando]

No

Everyone here has already outlined everything I would end up commenting on.

No

[Shroomicide]

Syllogy, on 11 December 2012 - 07:58 AM, said:

They ruled against it because 4 PPC's could non-stop Alpha strike on Standard 210 Engine DHS alone without overheating.

As much as people want to believe that the devs just throw a boatload of changes into a patch to see what happens, there is quite a bit of internal testing that we never see.

It's true, 4 PPCs would be able to do that. And, it has crossed my mind that maybe 2.0 is a little high, and what may be necessary is either what it is now or something in between. I'm not saying what I think is the only correct solution, just pointing out what already exists.

That said, what else can alpha-strike without DHS, without overheating, with similar damage, and no minimum range? Any given ballistic weapon. I don't think PPCs would just replace them like that. They have their own sets of issues. A PPC cannon serves a very specific purpose, and that is moderate damage, moderate range, high velocity, and high heat. What happens when a mech gets too close for minimum range? They have a lot of colorful lights and nothing else. A light mech can literally bake a PPC boat with a medium laser, no problem.

I also understand the testing which goes on. They may be correct. But any test has flaws, and in this case, it may be their narrow opinion of what an energy build should do. It's possible they tested just that, and didn't happen to use anything that might counter it. Ballistics are the far and away preferred, for very good reasons. No one wants to sink money into an energy build which overheats quickly without the damage.

[Syllogy]

Okay, so what is your solution to Clan DHS?

They are supposed to only occupy 2 Critical slots instead of 3 line the Inner Sphere, but cool at the same rate.

Are you saying that IS and Clan HS should be the same?

Are you saying that Clan HS should only occupy a single Crit slot?

Are you saying that you are unaware that the devs monitor the suggestion forum like a Fat Kid watches a Cupcake, and take notes and apply tweaks in-house to further balance and fine-tune gameplay?

[Bors Mistral]

aspect, on 10 December 2012 - 03:26 PM, said:

Except, of course, versus the people who are just starting...who we also NEED TO LIKE THE GAME TO KEEP IT RUNNING.

Have you tried any of the trial mechs lately? It's not the current messed-up-Tripple-Slot-Heatsincs or some would-be-proper-2.0-DHS that makes them p*ss poor. The stock canon variants simply can't compete in this game, because the whole heat scale is way different from TT.

- fix/tweak the trial mechs first and make all DHS 1.8
or
- improve SHS to 1.2 or 1.3 even and make all DHS 2.0

[MustrumRidcully]

Shroomicide, on 11 December 2012 - 08:13 AM, said:

It's true, 4 PPCs would be able to do that.

Are you sure that it's true?

Show me your math, please.

The actual exmaple they brought up was a 5 or 6 medium laser Cicada. Not a Quad PPC mech. And they were right. But they may have made the wrong conclusion - not DHS are overpowered - medium lasers are.


Addendum:
And here is something mind-blowing. Sit down before you read it.

I can give you 10 times the heat dissipation (not saying it's a good idea, just saying I could), and still make it impossible for you to alpha strike all the time with your Quad PPCs.

I'll just set your heat capacity to 30. Exactly 30. Not 30+x. Just 30.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 11 December 2012 - 09:35 AM.

[Syllogy]

MustrumRidcully, on 11 December 2012 - 09:30 AM, said:

Are you sure that it's true? Show me your math, please. The actual exmaple they brought up was a 5 or 6 medium laser Cicada. Not a Quad PPC mech. And they were right. But they may have made the wrong conclusion - not DHS are overpowered - medium lasers are. Addendum: And here is something mind-blowing. Sit down before you read it. I can give you 10 times the heat dissipation (not saying it's a good idea, just saying I could), and still make it impossible for you to alpha strike all the time with your Quad PPCs. I'll just set your heat capacity to 30. Exactly 30. Not 30+x. Just 30.

Uh? what?

Please explain how Medium Lasers are overpowered.

The example given was a Laser Hunchback with 9 Medium Lasers, which generate the same collective heat as 4 PPC's.

Also... heat capacity 30? What are you talking about?

[Zyllos]

The only thing that fixes trial mechs is to reduce heat per second of weapons.

This can either be done by scaling back RoF (so that more heat efficient builds are not overshadowing hot mechs due to efficient weapons and high RoF) or normalizing heat per second to be more inline with CBT.

This is the ONLY way you can fix trial mechs without modifying what SHS actually do.

Personally, I think leaving the heat as is but halfing the RoF of all weapons. What this does is make Alpha Strikes not so constant (they will be around approximately every 6s instead of 3s) and will make people fire in brackets and groupings in brawls so that they are not just sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting on their weapons to come off CD.

Once the base RoF is greatly decreased, you will begin to see trial mechs become MUCH more balanced with customized mechs. The closer weapons are to the 10s RoF, the more balanced trials become.

Edited by Zyllos, 11 December 2012 - 09:54 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Syllogy, on 11 December 2012 - 09:41 AM, said:

Uh? what?

Please explain how Medium Lasers are overpowered.

The example given was a Laser Hunchback with 9 Medium Lasers, which generate the same collective heat as 4 PPC's.

On an Alpha Strike, 9 medium lasers generate 9 * 4 = 36 heat, 4 PPCs generate 4 * = 36 heat. But Medium lasers fire only every 4 seconds, so your Heat per Second is 9, while the 4 PPCs have 12 Heat per Second.
Your damage per second with 9 Medium Lasers is 11.25, the damage per seconds of 4 PPCs is 12.
To sink 9 heat per second, you would need 90 heat sinks or 45 double heat sinks. Neither is doable.
To sink 12 heat per second, you would need 120 heat sinks or 60 double heat sinks. Neither is doable.
But if things were doable, your 9 medium laser mech would weigh between 99 tons to 54 tons, while the Quad PPC build would need between 148 tons to 88 tons.
I could do more math that could try some more realistic goals, like not trying to make your mech heat neutral and merely last 20 seconds.. But it always boils down to this: You need to invest a lot less tonnage to get a decent damage output for a decent amount of time from medium lasers than you need for PPCs - and the difference is still extreme even if you consider that the PPCs have a longer range.
(And if you want the math for all of that - see my signature.)

Quote

Also... heat capacity 30? What are you talking about?

The maximum amount of heat your mech can have at any point in time is your heat capacity.

If your heat capacity is lower than the heat your alpha strike produces, it is impossible for oyu to make that alpha strike without overheating, even if you had more than enough heat sinks to dissipate all the heat before the next salvo. Under such a scenario, your only option to sustian your full DPS and to not overheat would be to chain yor fire - for example, fire only 2 PPCs together, wait long enough for heat to dissipate that you can fire the next 2, and from then on always fire your weapons when they are ready.

My fictional 30 heat capacity scenario for a Quad PPC mech - let's say you can sink 36 heat every 3 seconds so you can fire your PPCs all day.
First you fire 2 PPCs. Your heat rises to 18. You wait for 1.5 seconds, so your heat lowers itself to 0. You fire your 2nd set of PPCs, go to 18 heat again. 1.5 seconds later, your first 2 PPCs are off cooldown and your heat is back to 0.

You can't alpha all day. You cannot even alpha once without overheating. You have to manage your heat and exercise fire discipline, despite having all the heat dissipation in the world to sustain your firepower forever.


Mustrum "I actually hoped my post would be so mind-blowing that you wouldn't need the explanation and realize the incredible potential behind the concpet of heat capacity on your own" Ridcully

[MustrumRidcully]

Zyllos, on 11 December 2012 - 09:54 AM, said:

Once the base RoF is greatly decreased, you will begin to see trial mechs become MUCH more balanced with customized mechs. The closer weapons are to the 10s RoF, the more balanced trials become.

The underlying problems in terms of heat and weapon balance stem form the way firing rates were set without considering how it affected the heat system.

But aisde from that: It's actually an interesting topic to discuss how gameplay would change with lower rates of fire. Not just from a pure balance point of view, or heat management point of view. Just thinking about how people would play their mechs to be effective.

For example, one thing I imagine - a lower rate of fire across the board would make people take more effort in aiming, because they knew their next shot would be off, and a miss is costly - with a low rate of fire, you sometimes just have to worry about shooting faster than your enemy, because otherwise you lose a lot.

In a way, misses wouild be less forgiving. But at the same time - maneuvering might be much more important - getting back into cover after a shot could deny the enemy more of his own firepower - unless both sides have "synchronized" their weapon fire timing - and even then, the person who reacts more quickly to someone popping out of cover may have the advantage.

Sniper builds may be much more important. But even fast mechs might find themselves having advantegous situations - if they retreat fast enough, the enemy won't get a shot at them!

We may not see the current circle-jerk maneuvers in a game with sloer rates of fire, simply because it is more advantageous for the light to disappear behind the next cover rather than sustian his fire at a weak spot and just rely on the enemy missing a lot.

[Zyllos]

Syllogy, on 11 December 2012 - 09:41 AM, said:

Uh? what?

Please explain how Medium Lasers are overpowered.

The example given was a Laser Hunchback with 9 Medium Lasers, which generate the same collective heat as 4 PPC's.

Also... heat capacity 30? What are you talking about?

Heat capacity is 30 + (W * X) + (Y * Z).

W = number of heatsinks outside the engine
X = increase in heat capacity (outside)
Y = number of heatsinks inside the engine
Z = increase in heat capacity (inside)

SHS have the same X and Z values, 1.0.

DHS have an X = 1.4 and a Z = 2.0.

If you made DHS have the same function in capacity as SHS, SHS will have the choice of increasing heat capacity for a trade in tonnage.

Interestingly, if you made DHS = 0.16 dissipation and 1.0 capacity in all situations with SHS = 0.1 dissipation and 1.0 capacity, DHS will be more efficient in smaller numbers but in higher numbers, and in tonnage, SHS will win out, in both dissipation and capacity.

While I think allowing SHS to be better than DHS in ANY situation completely breaks canon, PGI has said they want their heat scale to matter, which only means 100%, all heat below that means nothing.

[Zyllos]

MustrumRidcully, on 11 December 2012 - 10:03 AM, said:

The underlying problems in terms of heat and weapon balance stem form the way firing rates were set without considering how it affected the heat system.

But aisde from that: It's actually an interesting topic to discuss how gameplay would change with lower rates of fire. Not just from a pure balance point of view, or heat management point of view. Just thinking about how people would play their mechs to be effective.

For example, one thing I imagine - a lower rate of fire across the board would make people take more effort in aiming, because they knew their next shot would be off, and a miss is costly - with a low rate of fire, you sometimes just have to worry about shooting faster than your enemy, because otherwise you lose a lot.

In a way, misses wouild be less forgiving. But at the same time - maneuvering might be much more important - getting back into cover after a shot could deny the enemy more of his own firepower - unless both sides have "synchronized" their weapon fire timing - and even then, the person who reacts more quickly to someone popping out of cover may have the advantage.

Sniper builds may be much more important. But even fast mechs might find themselves having advantegous situations - if they retreat fast enough, the enemy won't get a shot at them!

We may not see the current circle-jerk maneuvers in a game with sloer rates of fire, simply because it is more advantageous for the light to disappear behind the next cover rather than sustian his fire at a weak spot and just rely on the enemy missing a lot.

Exactly. Lowering RoF by 100% would be one of the most balancing features to the game.

It does SO many good things to this game if the RoF was cut in half across the board.