Posted 06 September 2018 - 04:36 PM

Heatsink Changes



Weapon Changes



Mobility Changes



Quirk Changes

PTS Summary

PTS 1.0

Various reductions to clan weapon systems with various degrees of intensity changes.



Laser weapons seeing global damage reductions with some values shifted to cooldowns and heat efficiency.



Clan Gauss Rifles receiving a recoil

PTS 1.1

Various reductions to clan weapon systems with various degrees of intensity changes.



Laser weapons seeing near global beam duration adjustments as opposed to previously tested value adjustments



Clan Gauss Rifles kept their recoil from PTS 1.0



Heavily armored IS 'Mechs received a reduction to their Durability quirks

PTS 2.0 and 2.1

Rework of Heatsink Functionality providing higher dissipation for less Shutdown Threshold



Higher Mobility values for over 400 'Mech Variants

Moving Forward

Role of Heat Within MWO:

Heatsink Changes in PTS 2.0 / 2.1:

Final Changes:

Base Heat Bar increased to 45 (from 30)



Heatsinks

Dissipation Increased to 0.14 (from 0.13)

Heat Capacity reduced to 0.85 (from 1.3)

Removed settings related to differences between Engine and External Heatsinks.

Double Heatsinks

Dissipation Increased to 0.22 (from 0.15)

Heat Capacity reduced to 0.5 (from 1.5)

Removed settings related to differences between Engine and External Heatsinks.

Clan Double Heatsinks

Dissipation Increased to 0.22 (from 0.15)

Heat Capacity reduced to 0.5 (from 1.5)

Removed settings related to differences between Engine and External Heatsinks.

Quirks

Corrective Heat Dissipation quirks on sub 250 engine 'Mechs will be generally phased out.

Some quirks may remain depending on if we wish to keep a small amount of dissipation as a specific flavor or Omnipod perk.



Known Issues:

I am here to announce the conclusion of the Alpha Balance PTS series. I want to start out with a big thank you for all who have participated and provided feedback over the various testing sessions. Over the next few months we will be rolling a number of large changes into the core MWO game based on results tested throughout the series.With this PTS series we tested different design directions in an aggressive way to monitor the impact of such changes both through metrics and user feedback. No singular test got us exactly where we wanted to be, but collectively, they moved the dial on a number of individual things in a direction we wish to move in. Over the next few months we will be integrating various aspects found in the PTS sessions into the live game. What will be integrated will be a middle ground on a number of various points tested throughout the series with some more closely resembling what was found on PTS, while some will more closely resemble what is currently on live.In order to consolidate the various points, I will be providing a short summery of our results from the various PTS's followed by a more elaborate breakdown as they relate to the core issues that where tested that we will be making changes to in the coming months:We want to briefly give a short summary of results from the various PTS testing sessions. More elaborate breakdowns of certain findings will be touched on in the larger consolidated topics session. Keep in mind that as a brief summary, these will focus more on global results, and not focus on any individual game system, 'Mech, or weapon setting.What was tested:PTS 1.0 overall set out what it accomplished to do, testing results showed that the path affected Heavier and Assault 'Mechs performance more then lighter 'Mechs performance and Inner Sphere laser heavy options performed better against their Clan counterparts. In fact, Black Knights, Grasshoppers, and a number of other IS focused laser 'Mechs ended up being some of the top performers within the PTS itself. But this does not mean that the exact numbers are what we would consider game ready.We purposefully went aggressive on a number of numbers in the weapon tuning to examine break points, as well as provide an agitant to the higher top down numbers so we can better chart the global results of the general direction. As a result of this, while the global trajectory did show that this direction targeted the things we wished to target most, the degree in which their performance dipped was too much on the extreme side, especially in the assault category that saw the greatest losses.IS heavy and assault performance not just against clan 'Mechs, but against all 'Mechs also posed an issue as well. With their general durability making it not only tougher for clan 'Mechs, but also for smaller IS 'Mechs to compete against them. Despite the testing sessions being 4v4, lighter 'Mech performance against heavier targets is just as much of a balance point that we manage just as much as various other points. With Clans being brought into better offensive alignment, the high durability perks on some IS 'Mechs came under the microscope for future testing.What we tested:Based on player feedback, we attempted a mass migration of beam duration stats to monitor if we can receive similar results to PTS 1.0 utilizing a different method that was seen as more tolerable from player feedback. If we could receive similar results to PTS 1.0, we would use it as a base for how we can target the laser vomit. While their was the desirable dip in performance, where these dips came from we felt did not adequately address the issue we where targeting.In an almost inverse effect of what was tested in PTS 1.0, those most heavily impacted by the change where lighter 'Mechs, who's longer beam duration made it harder to maintain damage against a target while moving at high speeds. While slower heavy and assault 'Mechs only saw a minor inconvenience to the way their gameplay was impacted. As they effectively functioned identically to how they did before with only a minor inconvenience of a longer beam duration. This lead to only a very slight dip in performance for Clan heavy and assault laser vomit outside of those builds impacted by the Gauss Rifle change, and unlike PTS 1, did not see the desirable results of closer parity in performance between clan Laser heavy builds compared to IS laser heavy builds.In addition to this, we found that beam duration increases at a certain point becomes a breakpoint where players simply don't use the weapon in favor of other, shorter beam weapons. We saw heavy lasers take a massive use dip, with many people shifting over towards pulse lasers over other laser types to mitigate the higher beam durrations. This is unlike what we saw in PTS 1.0 where the spread of laser usage was much more evenly distributed from where they where on PTS 1.1, and where those break points lied was not far off from their present tuning.We found that within the test the armor changes did not negatively impact the performance of the IS 'Mechs. Despite the reduction, they still remained highly competitive against various clan 'Mechs within the testing space.What we tested in both of these sessions:Overall, PTS 2.1 was hailed as game ready by a large amount of player feedback, while we are encouraged by the support, we did find that the heat system changes tended to be a bit too restrictive for a number of heavier 'Mechs, and for core weapons that dealt with high amounts of high heat "Spikes" such as PPC's, AC/20's and others. While we are happy to see the enthusiasm regarding these changes, there are a few points that we felt we could not ignore if we where to push something similar to this live. We will elaborate on these points under the Heatsink Changes section.Mobility was also well received and well tested overall, but resulted in a number of things that gave us some concerns. We will be moving forward on mobility improvements, but with a few caveats that we will elaborate on in the Mobility Changes section of this announcement.Although these two points tested well, the core thing we wished to address through this PTS series, bringing the performance between IS and Clan laser focused builds into better alignment, was not accomplished with this PTS. Overall Clan laser focused builds remained at a point where they overshadowed IS laser focused builds, and while the PTS did bring up a number of alternatives, they did not get raised to the point that we would have liked to see.Without a doubt one of the largest responses we have received revolve around the heatsink testing. And after reviewing the PTS' we will be making changes to the system as it exists in the current live game. Before we get into these changes, we would like to provide a bit of a top down view to what we wish to accomplish with the heat system.We want to take the time to state that the heat system's primary role within MWO is not to curtail high alpha use, but to provide a resource pool in which 'Mechwarriors can tap for short term gains at the expense of longer period of vulnerability. Much like in the original game of BattleTech where you can push a 'Mechs heat past it's capabilities to exploit an opening for a turn at the expense of reduced performance in subsequent turns, MWO attempts to replicate this with its overall threshold, dissipation, and general weapon cooldown tuning. Where pushing a 'Mech past its capacity to sustain DPS and up to the point where it is "Heat Capped" leaves it vulnerable for an extended period of time to more DPS efficient loadouts, or 'Mechs that are not heat capped themselves. Effectively trading short term gains for longer term periods of vulnerability to potential counter attacks.The balance between burst damage / alpha focused and high sustain / DPS focused load-outs is one of the central focus of the balance team, and one that is front and center for a number of changes that have happened over the years. To this end, we are never attempting to fully remove high burst alpha from the table, but make sure that the amount of power one gets out of it is not so vast that it marginalizes weapons / builds that focus on the opposite end of the spectrum. Using the Heat bar exclusively as an alpha mitigation tool fundamentally alters its design intention away from what it was in BattleTech, and what we want it to be in MWO. So while we are open to tightening of certain systems, we do want to keep in mind the general role of the heat system when it came to implementation of these changes.With the above in mind, we get to the PTS 2.0 and 2.1 results. Upfront, we liked what we saw with the increase to dissipation values. We believe it opened up more DPS options compared to what we have seen in the past, and we will be moving forward with changes along this direction as we will get to bellow.Regarding the shutdown threshold though, while we do see value in the direction, we felt that both PTS 2.0 and PTS 2.1 still did not get us to where we wanted to be. We feel that the PTS changes pushed the dial too far into the sustained DPS camp, and too aggressively punished all but the most highly optimized high alpha builds. Chief among them, a number of high damage + High heat, non-laser weapons such as PPC's, AC/20's, mass SRM, did not have enough threshold to effectively utilize their load-outs, nor the dissipation through lower heat sink investments due to higher weapon weights to properly sustain their builds for long. We have decided that we will be significantly reducing threshold values, but we will not be going with a flat value as tested in PTS 2.0 and 2.1. This is in order to provide those that do invest in additional heatsinks just a bit more threshold compared to those that do not invest it to give you a bit more overhead to utilize in burst heat situations, but no where near the levels that they used to occupy. At least for double heatsinks.Standard heatsinks will be tuned to be slightly similar to how they operate currently. They will get a bit more dissipation then they had before, but their scaling has been reworked to account for the incoming changes to double heatsinks. Offering a bit of an immediate boost to threshold at the onset, but it will no longer scale at the same level it once did once you get past 18 heatsinks.Based on the testing in PTS 2.0 and 2.1 we additionally feel that it is time to breakaway from differentiating between internal engine heatsinks and external player placed heat sinks. We will be streamlining heatsinks to only have a singular value that is added based on the number of total heatsinks on the 'Mech. This will eliminate the need to artificially enhance sub 250 engine rating 'Mechs, and we hope it provides more options for 'Mechs in the Medium weight bracket to not feel artificially punished for taking slower engines for larger payloads. As well as make the system a bit more transparent and easy to grasp for players who may not have known the difference between engine based heat sinks and externally placed heatsinks.With all of the above taken into consideration, here will be the changes that we will be pushing live:ETA - October PatchChart of the Dissipation Changes:Chart of the Shutdown Thresholds:Through PTS 2.0 and 2.1 testing we have identified a handful of issues that we will be attempting to resolve leading up to or shortly after the Heatsink change's release:With the shifting of heat capacity values from heatsinks to the base values, this is something that is not covered by the current side torso destruction penalties for IS Light and Clan XL engines, and as observed in PTS2.0 and PTS2.1, it provides these engine types with a significant buff over their live versions by having only their dissipation values being affected through torso destruction rather than both their dissipation and their threshold values affected. This is a buff that we strongly feel these engine types do not need. We will be working towards correcting this for release so that the side torso destruction penalties provides similar performance hits to a 'Mech's shutdown threshold that you would find with the equipment currently in the live game.Because stealth armor completely negates dissipation and relies on a 'Mechs total threshold in order to effectively operate, the changes being pushed for heatsinks drastically affects the current mechanics regarding stealth armor. We will be targeting changes to the stealth armor to ensure that it is better tuned to account for the incoming heat system changes.Changes to shutdown thresholds as well as increases to heat dissipation will end up putting flamers, a weapon specifically tuned to the current heat system settings, directly under the microscope, and may need further changes to account for the new heat system. Unlike the previous two entries, we will not be targeting changes for the flamer for release, but instead closely observe both it's post launch performance, as well as player feedback regarding it's role post heat sink changes. We will be closely monitoring player feedback on this matter and won't rule out potential changes post release if we feel they are needed.