116 replies to this topic

[Abrahms]

I'm sure most of you have seen the 30+ page threads on how the (heat/dmg/tonnage) ratios are broken in this game. MWO ported over the stats from TableTop and then tripled rate of fire, completely neglecting the fact that heatsinks weigh 1 ton and that TableTop considered this when establishing weapon weight. That is why a PPC weighs 7 tons and a Gauss weighs 15. The PPC needed 10 tons of heatsinks (17 tons) for heat neutrality but a Gauss needed 1... so 16 tons + 4 tons of ammo for 20 tons.

Do the math, and 3xPPC versus 2xGauss were both 30 dmg at roughly similar sniping range. They also, while considering engine heatsinks, weighs almost the SAME 40 tons for heat neutrality/enough ammo to last all game (or long enough in TableTop to kill stuff).

Note that they also were based on 10 second turns. With MWO roughly (round to 3.33) tripling the rate of fire, triple the heatsinks are required to keep the same proportions of weight to combat effectiveness. The Gauss went up 2 tons, the PPC went of 20 tons each. In the end, it took a 1:1 ratio and made the PPC half as effective per ton as the gauss.

(You dont NEED heat neutrality, but you should run cool enough to kill a mech before overheating unless youre in a fast mech that can escape like a jenner - even for sniping you can take enough ammo to fire on cooldown without worry, but a PPC can quickly force you to wait for 30+ seconds).

So how does PGI go about fixing this atrocious and obvious blunder? Hotch-Potch fixing. It works to some degree for the weapons around the middle. The small laser used to be king, the medium was strong, and the large laser was abysmal. Some tweak however by +1 or -1 dmg/heat hasnt "fixed" it but it at least made them closer to their original (and logical) proportions. We want all weapons to serve a purpose and place, why put them in the game otherwise?

This doesnt work however for the extremes. The Gauss was harmed maybe 5%, the PPC however lost half its effectiveness in the translation. The Gauss has never been, and still is not, overpowered. Its simply one of the few weapons working properly, with weapons like the PPC feeling "gimp" because, well, its tonnage was more than doubled to keep the same effectiveness.

How do they try to fix this? Leave the PPC as hot as the planet's core, meanwhile make the gauss a ticking suicide bomb.


* Set the health of the Gauss rifle to 3 points
* Set the chance that the destruction of a Gauss rifle will cause it to
explode to 90%s


What does this fix? Nothing. Its still the clear choice for most mechs. Instead it simply reduces the player's quality of life by reducing their overall health on that and nearby components by a large %.

tldr: "We cant figure out how to balance this game, so well just break good items or make them suicide so player's dont take them"

It still leads to imbalance. Good players will still enjoy non-stop 30 dmg alphas, bad players will continue to melt in PPC ovens and wonder why their KDR is so bad, and everyone else that tries to take a Gauss will wonder why they just died after two alpha strikes.

Great job.... simply amazing.

pro tip: if it aint broke, dont fix it (gauss). Fix what is broken - the heat system where heatsinks weigh 1 ton per 1 heat over 1 seconds. You cant triple the RoF and leave this in place without an entire overhaul (e.g. retuning the entire system, rather than hotch-potch 1 point fixes).

Edited by Abrahms, 04 December 2012 - 01:39 PM.

[Solis Obscuri]

Abrahms, on 04 December 2012 - 01:35 PM, said:

I'm sure most of you have seen the 30+ page threads on how the (heat/dmg/tonnage) ratios are broken in this game.

All by the same three people...

[Damocles]

Keep shouting off that cliff

[Abrahms]

Damocles, on 04 December 2012 - 01:38 PM, said:

Keep shouting off that cliff

The developer's may give a rat's booty to balance or how good the game is, but players think otherwise.

A dev will simply snub this, but a new player will either be informed as to how to optimize their mech better, or simply move on to another game. If enough players role one thing (reflects in PGI's statistics) or simply quit because they realize the developer's dont care, they might actually start caring.

[Anastasius]

Wall of text crits for 9000.

[Abrahms]

Anastasius, on 04 December 2012 - 01:43 PM, said:

Wall of text crits for 9000.

With plenty of spaces in between and short paragraphs to help those with short attention spans.

[MustrumRidcully]

Solis Obscuri, on 04 December 2012 - 01:37 PM, said:

All by the same three people...

Hmm.

Abrahms
Vapor Trail
Left Lucy
Zarok Ramone
Mustrum Ridcully

I count at least 5. And I am sure I am missing some. And there are more participating. And some with refreshing and interesting approaches. (EmperorMyrf, Indoorsman, Vassago Rain, Joseph Mallan, Lazy Eye, Draco Argentum, Hatachi, Squidhead Jax, CloaknDagger, Tseng Shang, and some more that I also forgot... I should get a real memory one day, not this sieve I have...)

I am really not sure sometimes why we bother. It's not as if people actually bring some arguments to the table, so we're just rehasing the same old things, and the result is the same - PGI fumbling about. I wish I could trust the makers of this game more, but they haven't really convinced me. Maybe it's just too small off a team to keep track of all the moving parts, I don't know. I am not a game developer, but I am a software developer, and I know these things are complex. But.. Man. It doesn't seem that hard to me here. We're not talking about weird bugfixes deep down in the code here, we're talking about an xml file that controls the balance or imbalance in this game.

Mustrum "I hate how negative it has made me" Ridcully

[FLes]

Solis Obscuri, on 04 December 2012 - 01:37 PM, said:

All by the same three people...

Your point being...?

[DrAwkward]

-Yawn-

So, you're angry that Gauss got nerfed.

You needed a reason to try and argue righteous indignation, so you dredged up the old topic of heat.

You argue that PPC needed a buff, though that isn't what you're angry about. If it was, you'd realize that PGI already stated they were looking at doing an emp effect coupled with a projectile velocity increase. The key to those dead threads that you dredged up were lost in the middle of people upset that their idea wasn't the one being used. It had nothing to do with whether their idea was right, or whether there were multiple possible answers.

What they realized is that if they just did a numbers buff, then one or the other would still be more efficient. They couldn't just do numbers and generate balance between the energy sniper and the ballistic sniper. You argue that TT efficiencies must be maintained, but anyone that played CBT with competitive players knows that's nonsense. TT is not a balanced game and isn't fit for high-tier competitive play.

We could talk about that, or perhaps weapon-heat balances in general, but there are other threads that talked about that (as you noted), and that isn't what this thread is about.

This thread is because you're mad Gauss Rifles got nerfed.

[Oxford]

I'll put my hand up too.
I've suggested at least a couple of times in these threads that they change the gauss to a longer cooldown or drop the damage and heat caused by all weapons by the same ratio that they increased their rate of fire or some variation.
I'm usually shouted down by someone who seems to be of the opinion that mentioning TT is the MWO forum equivalent of Godwin's Law.
They stop reading as soon as you mention it and seem to think we are demanding that the game be made turn based or something.

Edit: Punctuation and spelling are your friends.

Edited by Oxford, 04 December 2012 - 02:01 PM.

[Hurnn]

I'll throw my name in to the pile of people have been saying the heat system is broken and the biggest cause of weapon imbalance.

[Oxford]

DrAwkward, on 04 December 2012 - 01:57 PM, said:

So, you're angry that Gauss got nerfed.

You needed a reason to try and argue righteous indignation, so you dredged up the old topic of heat.

Seems to me he is arguing that the gauss nerf is not going to bother anyone and is therefore not a nerf.
If you are really worried about taking critical hits in your side torso on your gaussapult I suppose you could fit CASE. I can't remember the last time I saw a cat die with it's side torso shot out so I fail to see how this effects the metagame at all.
If anything this patch has made the gauss more attractive as a weapon because it doesn't have issues with ECM.

Edited by Oxford, 04 December 2012 - 02:25 PM.

[Taizan]

Just for some clarification on the "Quality of life" of the pilot. Is it possible to use CASE for a gauss? Also isn't it supposed to be a fragile weapon? Aren't they going to buff PPCs by giving them an EMP effect?

My opinion on this issue is divided. On the one hand I see what you are getting at OP, on the other hand it makes more sense to make changes to one weapon and see what impact it has instead of changing the variables of several different weapons.

Also imo a certain imbalance (to a degree) is necessary in most games to make them fun and challenging.

Edited by Taizan, 04 December 2012 - 02:30 PM.

[MrPenguin]

DrAwkward, on 04 December 2012 - 01:57 PM, said:

TT is not a balanced game and isn't fit for high-tier competitive play.

Courage. You have it.

[Abrahms]

DrAwkward, on 04 December 2012 - 01:57 PM, said:

-Yawn-

So, you're angry that Gauss got nerfed.

You needed a reason to try and argue righteous indignation, so you dredged up the old topic of heat.

You argue that PPC needed a buff, though that isn't what you're angry about. If it was, you'd realize that PGI already stated they were looking at doing an emp effect coupled with a projectile velocity increase. The key to those dead threads that you dredged up were lost in the middle of people upset that their idea wasn't the one being used. It had nothing to do with whether their idea was right, or whether there were multiple possible answers.

What they realized is that if they just did a numbers buff, then one or the other would still be more efficient. They couldn't just do numbers and generate balance between the energy sniper and the ballistic sniper. You argue that TT efficiencies must be maintained, but anyone that played CBT with competitive players knows that's nonsense. TT is not a balanced game and isn't fit for high-tier competitive play.

We could talk about that, or perhaps weapon-heat balances in general, but there are other threads that talked about that (as you noted), and that isn't what this thread is about.

This thread is because you're mad Gauss Rifles got nerfed.

No, if you notice, I mention that the gauss was already nerfed from TT, it just took a very small 2 ton hit that is negated fairly easily. In fact, engine HSs do so for most builds. The PPC build took a 20 ton hit per PPC - no way any mech can cope with that.

The gauss was only nerfed for baddies and PUGs. Its now a harder to use, harder to acquire, more expensive (deaded real eazy guyz) item. If Im on a good team though I can still pop damaged heads off at 800 meters with little to fear. The nerf doesnt do anything to gameplay until your armor is gone. It also affects your pocket book (PGI me wantz $$$ for a $10 quality indie game).

What should be fixed? HEAT - then the gauss would suddenly lose its "overpowered" gloss for all the "noobz." They would finally realize that the heat system is the only thing. Hypothetically if heatsinks were buffed 10x, the gauss would be the worse weapon in the game. Its all about heat and tonnage requirements.

This "fix" changes nothing. I will continue to snipe with impunity. However my brawler Atlas will no longer carry one. The Atlas has such a huge side torso that some cheese A1 SSRM boat (which are now much weaker thanks to ECM) or uber-lagfesting-Jenner that cant fall down could strafe by for 15 seconds and gib it before they take more than 1 hit's worth of damage.

[Salient]

I agree with OP, its a pretty dumb way to 'balance' the game. PPCs are just crap atm, and that shouldnt be the case.

I think a good fix would have been to drop PPC tonage to 5 tons, allowing for a couple more heatsinks per PPC. Also, giving the GR a min range of 60m, which is what i think it is in TT. (or maybe that was heavy GR, whatever, still needs a min range.)

[Aurien Titus]

Actually they just brought the Gauss Rifle more inline with what it was in TT. So you can take all your righteous indignation somewhere else.



In TT it was only 1 hit on a Gauss Rifle for a 100% chance of taking 20 points of damage to that location. Welcome to BattleTech.

[Vlad Ward]

MustrumRidcully, on 04 December 2012 - 01:49 PM, said:

Hmm.

Abrahms
Vapor Trail
Left Lucy
Zarok Ramone
Mustrum Ridcully

I count at least 5. And I am sure I am missing some. And there are more participating. And some with refreshing and interesting approaches. (EmperorMyrf, Indoorsman, Vassago Rain, Joseph Mallan, Lazy Eye, Draco Argentum, Hatachi, Squidhead Jax, CloaknDagger, Tseng Shang, and some more that I also forgot... I should get a real memory one day, not this sieve I have...)

I am really not sure sometimes why we bother. It's not as if people actually bring some arguments to the table, so we're just rehasing the same old things, and the result is the same - PGI fumbling about. I wish I could trust the makers of this game more, but they haven't really convinced me. Maybe it's just too small off a team to keep track of all the moving parts, I don't know. I am not a game developer, but I am a software developer, and I know these things are complex. But.. Man. It doesn't seem that hard to me here. We're not talking about weird bugfixes deep down in the code here, we're talking about an xml file that controls the balance or imbalance in this game.

Mustrum "I hate how negative it has made me" Ridcully

The problem is that many of those threads seem to call for a complete heat system overhaul when such a system wouldn't do anything to fix the fundamental, intentional imbalance of energy weapons.

Want to lower the PPC's heat/shot? That's cool, man. Seriously. I'd be all for that. Same with the large laser. I may even support a damage/shot buff to both weapons (PPC 10>12 and LL 9>11) in addition to a heat decrease.

But some of the suggestions I see in those massive threads are just not well thought out. As we saw with the doubled heat dissipation + halved heat capacity scenario, a minor buff to PPC DPS (and, honestly, a nerf to their precision) results in massively overpowering the already stronger SL/ML/MPLs.

[Windies]

MustrumRidcully, on 04 December 2012 - 01:49 PM, said:

Hmm.

Abrahms
Vapor Trail
Left Lucy
Zarok Ramone
Mustrum Ridcully

I count at least 5. And I am sure I am missing some. And there are more participating. And some with refreshing and interesting approaches. (EmperorMyrf, Indoorsman, Vassago Rain, Joseph Mallan, Lazy Eye, Draco Argentum, Hatachi, Squidhead Jax, CloaknDagger, Tseng Shang, and some more that I also forgot... I should get a real memory one day, not this sieve I have...)

I am really not sure sometimes why we bother. It's not as if people actually bring some arguments to the table, so we're just rehasing the same old things, and the result is the same - PGI fumbling about. I wish I could trust the makers of this game more, but they haven't really convinced me. Maybe it's just too small off a team to keep track of all the moving parts, I don't know. I am not a game developer, but I am a software developer, and I know these things are complex. But.. Man. It doesn't seem that hard to me here. We're not talking about weird bugfixes deep down in the code here, we're talking about an xml file that controls the balance or imbalance in this game.

Mustrum "I hate how negative it has made me" Ridcully

I tried early closed beta to get the point across that heat was broken with math but gave up because back then the thrashing you got for suggesting PGI might be wrong was pretty severe. Anymore it's blatantly obvious fanboyism and "create your own game since you're so damn good" mentalities that you have to contend with.

[Aegis Kleais]

Balance is never a "we got it perfectly right on the first try", and you haven't even given the current implementation a full day of public testing. I know a lot of people talk as if balancing is as simple as doing a 1:1 port of Table Top rules to MWO, but it just isn't.