49 replies to this topic

[zverofaust]

There's an important distinction between Volume and Frequency of fire, and I feel MWO's current heat system is skewed heavily towards limitations on Frequency and not Volume, and that this is uncharacteristic of Mechwarrior game design.

In simple terms, Frequency of fire can be described as how often Mechs can fire their weapons. We all know this isn't very long. Generally, we spend our time in-game popping out of cover, unleashing repeated torrents of weapons fire before overheating and retiring to cover to cool down before repeating the process. Usually, all weapons (range permitting) are fired at targets to deal a maximum amount of damage before Overheating starts to force us to disengage.

In other words, there is no limit on Volume of Fire while firing; only the Frequency of how long we can keep that Volume up.

What I think is more accurate to Mechwarrior (along with providing a better, more fluid and interactive gaming experience) would be to put the impetus on limiting Volume rather than Frequency.

Ironically this can be done by adapting a more accurate representation of Battletech Heat, but this is more coincidence than by design. In BT, every turn, weapons and other actions added heat; at the end of the turn, Heatsinks subtracted heat. If you generated more heat than your heatsinks could handle, you exploded. This rarely happened; overheating pretty much only ever happened on purpose, during the most intense battles, as an active choice by the pilot during a desperate situation -- or just complete incompetence.

More importantly, so long as the pilot stayed within the confines of their heatsink capability, they were almost never at risk of overheating (barring external, unforeseen effects like being doused with burning jet fuel). A Mech could happily blaze away with a few -- but almost never all -- of its weapons for an indefinite period of time.

This has/had a very interesting (in my opinion) side effect on the design of Battlemechs: Many were designed to "run hot", with more weapons than their heatsinks could manage (if they used them all). Instead, their armaments were designed around the principle of multi-role capability, with different sets of weapons designed for different sets of circumstances that allowed the pilot to pick and choose which weapons he used during an engagement. At long range he'd use long range weapons; at short range, he'd use short range weapons. This created a very interesting dynamic in both Battletech and past Mechwarrior games, in that pilots had to choose which weapons were most appropriate to use in any given situation. They didn't just blast everything at once hoping for maximum damage before withdrawing behind a rock to cool down; players actively decided whether they wanted to use their AC/20, more powerful but harder to aim, or their bank of Medium Lasers, potentially less damage, but easier to hit a smaller moving target. He couldn't use both: He had to choose, and that choice added real, valuable tactical complexity to the game.

This decision-making process is almost nonexistent in MWO. The heat system is designed not to limit Volume, as in BT/past MW games, but to limit the Frequency at which we can fire our guns; combat does not involve much decision, but pure reaction to external conditions.

How can this decision-making process be reintroduced to MWO? Quite simply, I feel: By reducing the Heat Threshold (the maximum amount of heat before shutdown) and increasing Heat Dissipation (how fast generated heat goes away). Make it harder to inflict maximum-damage full alpha strikes of all weapons, while promoting the decision-making process of managing constant and sustained fire.

I feel this will improve gameplay for all comers.

Thank you for your time.

[Undead Bane]

Bumping your post... What have I become? =)

[Firelizard]

I rather like this idea. Dunno if it'll get pick up or not, but I like it.

[anonymous175]

Undead Bane, on 13 December 2012 - 07:19 PM, said:

Bumping your post... What have I become? =)

A monster. Or an ex-wife. One of those 2. Actually they're pretty much the same. Why Undead Bane why?

[Asmosis]

It does limit the volume of weapons fire, but only on the heavy energy weapons. 3-4 ERPPC's will do that for non-specialised mechs. 5+ without a load of heatsinks and you may well explode upon firing.

[aspect]

Can you just make a "complains about stuff" thread and put all your rants in there?

Edited by Niko Snow, 14 December 2012 - 02:43 AM.
N&S

[Grissnap]

I wanted to like your idea, but thinking through the ramifications it would only push people towards low heat cost, high fire rate weapons. In other words, nerfing lasers and buffing streaks/LRMs. Any player using lasers and other high heat cost weapons would have to play in the way you described, but those who chose low heat cost weapons would not only be unrestricted in their play style, the would also get a boost in relative power.

That sounds more like a step back than a step forward (limits player choice while still not adding depth in strategy).

I think with the level of customization we can get in our mechs there are not a lot of options for capturing the feel you are looking for.

[Solis Obscuri]

The argument is that firing many weapons at once should build up heat more rapidly than firing many weapons in rapid succession?

This is already the case.

[Warrax the Chaos Warrior]

PGI's nearly unrestricted customization system is the reason why most mechs specialize instead of carrying a balanced loadout; it's just easier to play that way, so that's how people play. The playstyle created the heat system here, the heat system did not create the playstyle.

[Targetloc]

Grissnap, on 13 December 2012 - 08:19 PM, said:

I wanted to like your idea, but thinking through the ramifications it would only push people towards low heat cost, high fire rate weapons. In other words, nerfing lasers and buffing streaks/LRMs. Any player using lasers and other high heat cost weapons would have to play in the way you described, but those who chose low heat cost weapons would not only be unrestricted in their play style, the would also get a boost in relative power.

That sounds more like a step back than a step forward (limits player choice while still not adding depth in strategy).

I think with the level of customization we can get in our mechs there are not a lot of options for capturing the feel you are looking for.

Increasing heat dissipation and lowering the cap would be more beneficial to high-heat weapons than to low-heat weapons.

For example gauss would receive almost no benefit.

For an AC5 you would need to take maybe 1 or 2 less heat sinks. (saving you what? 6-8% of the total weight dedicated to that weapon after ammo?).

For a PPC if dissipation was increased by 20% you could save 5 or 6 tons per PPC for similar performance. You wouldn't be able to fire as many at once, but their DPS per ton and crit would actually be somewhat closer to balanced with other weapons.


It would also make stock/trial mechs more effective because their weapons wouldn't be far outpace their heat efficiency.


Overall weapon recycle times would need to come down or armor would need to be buffed again to make up for higher DPS across the board for most builds.

[RainbowToh]

Your idea would simply favour low heat low damage but high DPS weapons since they wont break ur heat threshold. Whereas those high heat high damage but low DPS weapons would fail under ur system since they wont have enough heat threshold to alpha more than once. The current is all right already, just need some tweaking.

[p4g3m4s7r]

zverofaust, on 13 December 2012 - 06:51 PM, said:

MWO's current heat system is skewed heavily towards limitations on Frequency and not Volume, and that this is uncharacteristic of Mechwarrior game design.

In simple terms, Frequency of fire can be described as how often Mechs can fire their weapons. We all know this isn't very long. Generally, we spend our time in-game popping out of cover, unleashing repeated torrents of weapons fire before overheating and retiring to cover to cool down before repeating the process. Usually, all weapons (range permitting) are fired at targets to deal a maximum amount of damage before Overheating starts to force us to disengage.

In other words, there is no limit on Volume of Fire while firing; only the Frequency of how long we can keep that Volume up.

This sounds boring. You essentially don't have to manage your heat, you just have to choose which weapons groups you use at what range. The current situation is way more interesting, because you can actually choose to manage the heat in the way you describe, or you can come up with more complex firing/engagement schemes.

zverofaust, on 13 December 2012 - 06:51 PM, said:

This has/had a very interesting (in my opinion) side effect on the design of Battlemechs: Many were designed to "run hot", with more weapons than their heatsinks could manage (if they used them all). Instead, their armaments were designed around the principle of multi-role capability, with different sets of weapons designed for different sets of circumstances that allowed the pilot to pick and choose which weapons he used during an engagement. At long range he'd use long range weapons; at short range, he'd use short range weapons. This created a very interesting dynamic in both Battletech and past Mechwarrior games, in that pilots had to choose which weapons were most appropriate to use in any given situation. They didn't just blast everything at once hoping for maximum damage before withdrawing behind a rock to cool down; players actively decided whether they wanted to use their AC/20, more powerful but harder to aim, or their bank of Medium Lasers, potentially less damage, but easier to hit a smaller moving target. He couldn't use both: He had to choose, and that choice added real, valuable tactical complexity to the game.

There's a reason no one in any mechwarrior game uses the stock configs. They suck. Making a mech that's good at everything means you've made a mech that's good at nothing. Your design suggestion wouldn't fix this, anyway. People would just continue to min-max their build to be more specialized that the stock configs, but now they'd have slightly different configs.

[Zylo]

zverofaust, on 13 December 2012 - 06:51 PM, said:

Make it harder to inflict maximum-damage full alpha strikes of all weapons, while promoting the decision-making process of managing constant and sustained fire.

I feel this will improve gameplay for all comers.

Thank you for your time.

Wouldn't this just force more players into using Gauss rifles for the focused damage without high heat cost?

The concept could work for other weapons but there would be far more Gauss based sniper mechs as a result of fights lasting longer due to fewer mechs designed to fire everything then cool down for a bit.

[Corvus Antaka]

Lower the heat cap, raise dissipation.

+2

[xenoglyph]

Happy to see a non-flame thread from you, zvero.

Your idea is actually one that's been brought up a lot since the beginning of CB (I'm sure you know that already), and it's one that I agree with.

Reduction of heat capacity and an increase in heat dissipation would be worth testing.

[Mech Wrench]

Z, I want you to be on the engineering team for MechWarrior5!

[Grissnap]

Targetloc, on 13 December 2012 - 09:02 PM, said:

Increasing heat dissipation and lowering the cap would be more beneficial to high-heat weapons than to low-heat weapons.

For example gauss would receive almost no benefit.

If every mech could only cary one weapon only, then your argument would be valid. But the point is people who want to do lots of damage, tend to use multiples of weapons. If you lower the limit, the number of high energy cost weapons you can fire goes down, but there is no change required for low heat weapons, they might not "benefit" directly from this but their power level does not decrease either. So if X is decreased, but Y stays the same, then we can say that there is a relative benefit to Y.

[Stanton Langley]

Not sure what you are going on about; it seems to me that this system is already implemented. Pilots have a choice of sustained fire or alpha strikes and shutting down. I play for sustained fire and manage heat accordingly. It sounds like you choose to overheat and shutdown. Both are valid play styles, and I will do my best to continue punishing you when you shutdown to discourage that decision being repeated in the future.

[xenoglyph]

Stanton Langley, on 13 December 2012 - 10:59 PM, said:

Not sure what you are going on about; it seems to me that this system is already implemented. Pilots have a choice of sustained fire or alpha strikes and shutting down. I play for sustained fire and manage heat accordingly. It sounds like you choose to overheat and shutdown. Both are valid play styles, and I will do my best to continue punishing you when you shutdown to discourage that decision being repeated in the future.

You're not sure because you didn't read it until the end, instead opting to throw in your random 2c about your l33t heat management skillz.

[MustrumRidcully]

I wrote about an approach for this back during CLosed Beta as well, and it has come up occassionally in other t hread and by other posters as well.

I think it fits the original game rules as well as the lore better to have a low heat capacity and a high heat dissipaton.

Mechanically speaking, to implement this in MW:O, you could basically set your heat threshold much lower than it is now. Instead of using a threshold of 30+heat sinks, something like heat capacity = 3/4 your heat sinks would work for this purpose.

So if you have exactly as many heat sinks as yo uwould need to dissipate all the heat all your weapons generate, you could still not fire them all at once, because you would produce more heat than your capacity. But, you could still chain fire them, as after a few seconds you have fired your first group of weapons, their heat would be dissipated, you could fire your second group, and there heat would be dissipated before the first group of weapons is ready again.

A non-heat neutral mech would instead use these groups for different range brackets, not able to fire them all at once without overheating risk.

But to have any reasonable amounts of weapons (e.g. the type of weapon loadouts that are typical for Battletech) under this paradagim, the heat dissipation would need to be much higher than it is now (about 2-3 times as high as now.)

I don't think we'll see it happen... Not with the speed other game balance changes have been done so far. The Devs have settled for their system.

If only there was a way to make your own MW:O server with your own game rules...