468 replies to this topic

[Losvar]

Balance this game 1:1 to TT rules, and you will have a new world record in killing a potentially awesome game.
TT rules have never worked for a real time game, and never will, now stop being ********, and come up with some helpful feedback to the devs instead.

[Stormeris]

Losvar, on 19 March 2013 - 04:49 AM, said:

Balance this game 1:1 to TT rules, and you will have a new world record in killing a potentially awesome game.
TT rules have never worked for a real time game, and never will, now stop being ********, and come up with some helpful feedback to the devs instead.

Yeaaaah that title's already taken by Alien: Colonial Marines and Duke Nukem forever.

[MustrumRidcully]

Stormeris, on 19 March 2013 - 06:42 AM, said:

Yeaaaah that title's already taken by Alien: Colonial Marines and Duke Nukem forever.

At least PGI and IGP had nothing to do with A:CM, right?

AndyHill, on 19 March 2013 - 04:13 AM, said:

This thread is not about playing TT games or the all-powerful nature of the TT ruleset. It's about the (perceived) nature of the balancing process, which at least to me seems fairly random and one could even say that the recent balancing efforts have been (an inevitable) step towards TT-style balance. Also the biggest balance-breaking factors (ECM, streaks) would not be a problem if they had followed the spirit of TT equivalents.

To me the ideal process of converting TT to real-time goes like this:
1: Research the TT rules and balance (and inherent problems)
2: Research and map out the biggest differences between TT and real-time
3: Create a solution for transferring the balance and adjust numbers as necessary

Now I don't know the details, but to me the MWO development process has been more like this:
1: Assume a fundamentally incompatible game mechanic and insert TT numbers into it
2: Observe fail
3: Do drastic (and apparently random, we don't have details of the plans) number changes like triple firing rate, double armor etc.
4: Adjust based on statistics while including disruptive new elements (streaks, ECM, Artemis)

And now the situation is that we've been told earlier that streaks are doing a lot of hurt and something needs to be done, in the end AFAIK nothing has been done for months. We've been told that ECM is op and something needs to be done about it, that's certainly going to be interesting, since it's one of the things keeping streaks in check. At least to me it seems that the current system is fundamentally imbalanced and every new addition is basically an accident waiting to happen (I seriously dread the inclusion of clan 'mechs with incredible boating capability).

I really like MWO and especially its potential, since so many things have been done right. I just fear that the true potential may not be reached due to balancing issues - that I feel could've been largely avoided with different approach. Now I might be wrong on that and I'm definitely open for discussion, as long as it remains constructive.

That's what it looks to me, too. It seems relatively easy to see what would have been needed to do. Quite possible during the Friends & Family Beta or before, way before people like me bought their way into Closed Beta.

[PaintedWolf]

This is hilarious. You get to see things like weapons firing every ten seconds. A single AC-2 hit sets off an ammo explosion, kills an assault Mech outright. Mech walks within 90 meters of a target, fires and misses. Mech fires at close range at target's right arm- hits left leg.

Edited by PaintedWolf, 19 March 2013 - 07:19 AM.

[DocBach]

I'm a tabletop blowhard, and I disagree with most of the OP's points with the exception of ECM and double heat sinks. Sort of agree with Beagle, except Beagle only counters ECM running in Ghost Target mode, which we don't have in this game (well sort of, but its effects are rolled in with Disrupt currently).

[PaintedWolf]

DocBach, on 19 March 2013 - 07:12 AM, said:

I'm a tabletop blowhard, and I disagree with most of the OP's points with the exception of ECM and double heat sinks. Sort of agree with Beagle, except Beagle only counters ECM running in Ghost Target mode, which we don't have in this game (well sort of, but its effects are rolled in with Disrupt currently).

Thing is though they actually have to try and make ECM useful. Other things- Mechs walks into forest, Mech fails piloting skill roll, Mech topples- critical hit! Mech destroyed.

Mech bumps into friendly-Piloting Skill Roll!!- Mech falls, damages head, pilot K/O.

Mech starts "Run"- 10 seconds later, Atlas moved 90 meters in a straight line. Atlas turns around in a circle- all MP used.

And also if we go by TT design rules, we are gonna see some super-crazy boating. Mech with 5 Gauss Rifles ftw!

Edited by PaintedWolf, 19 March 2013 - 07:19 AM.

[Sheraf]

20 Streaks Stalker

Table top rules are not suit for a real time action game.

[MustrumRidcully]

PaintedWolf, on 19 March 2013 - 07:11 AM, said:

This is hilarious. You get to see things like weapons firing every ten seconds. A single AC-2 hit sets off an ammo explosion, kills an assault Mech outright. Mech walks within 90 meters of a target, fires and misses. Mech fires at close range at target's right arm- hits left leg.

It's hilarious that people believe that this is what (most) people that talk about how Battletech stats were ignored.
Did you know that the canon states than an AC/20 is a group of weapons categorized as weapons that have different damag eper shot and different rates of fire, but overall adding to something that is classes as AC/20?

If you don't want random hit location - and I am right there with you, I find them stupid - then you need to take those table top and understand how these random hit locations and those armour values fit together, and figure out how to change them so that the different hit locations and their armour values generate an interesting game mechanic.

Doubling armour across the board is just a stop-gap, it shows that you ignored why stats where as they were. The hit location tables meant that damage was spread across the mech .The armour values were designed to take this into account and make it likely that some hit locations would end up being destroyed with interesting effects on the battlefield dynamic (oops, there goes your main gun, what do you now?) before a mech was likely to be destroyed itself.
If you have mouse-aiming, there is no reason for people to waste time shooting of arms if coring kills the enitre mech, not just 1/4th of his potential arsenal. Unless the armour of the center torso is so high that it becomes very attractive to take out lower armoured locations first to lower the enemies threat.

[Syllogy]

You're right!

I demand that ALL WEAPONS HAVE A 10 SECOND COOLDOWN!

Seriously though, TT is not Canon. TT is a set of rules that are optimized for a board game.

Edited by Syllogy, 19 March 2013 - 07:30 AM.

[AndyHill]

Syllogy, on 19 March 2013 - 07:29 AM, said:

I demand that ALL WEAPONS HAVE A 10 SECOND COOLDOWN!

Seriously though, TT is not Canon. TT is a set of rules that are optimized for a board game.

That they are. And when designing a real-time simulation based on the TT rules you first take a look at the general game mechanics to see what needs to be done to translate the starting point to an end result in the smoothest possible way. This is basically how I would do it:

Moving the 'mechs? In the TT you take turns to move the 'mechs around and twist torsos depending on their speed characteristics. That's not a problem for real-time, in fact it works better when you don't have to take turns, the battles become interesting and hectic almost automatically. The TT doesn't account for different torso twist speeds, but it kind of makes sense to make the biggest 'mechs slower in that regard, so cudos to PGI. The piloting skills needed to drive a walking war machine aren't too apparent in the design yet, but we'll see what PGI does in the future.

How about firing the guns? Bingo, that's the ticket. Instead of throwing dice, you aim with a mouse and since the 'mechs are mostly fairly slow, you hit your targets with massively superior accuracy compared to the TT. Since the goal is (PGI have stated and I agree) to have 'mechs slugging it out for a good while, falling slowly apart in the process, we really need to do something about this. So, what now?

Two choices, at least. Introducing firing spread is one, but I would like to avoid it, since it's one mechanism I really don't like in WoT. The other choice is very simple: remove the ability to instant alpha-strike. Only chain fire allowed with some time between the shots. This puts a huge reduction in your ability to pinpoint alpha, making the matches last longer and reducing the usefulness of pure boat -builds. Additionally, I would probably experiment with allowing pilots to distribute the torso armor freely among the different sections.

Note that that was the first time I made references to table-top rules and I did it to break them.

In addition to removing alpha ability I would design a heat system to lessen the ability to project instant pinpoint firepower. It would be interesting to experiment with acute and chronic heat states, the first one determining shutdown (goes up and down fast) and the second one, representing a more wholesome heat state of the 'mech, accumulating more slowly and used to determine different penalties (speed, maneuverability, weapon cooldown, ammo explosion etc.).

Between these two mechanisms I would look to reduce the effect of instant pinpoint firepower, which is the one big issue when translating the TT rules into real time. Only after this process would I even begin to think about the dreaded table top weapon balance figures. My guess is that if the above translation phase was successful, the weapon balance would require little tweaking.

BTW, here's the kick: 10 second is probably the least relevant number in TT to real-time translation since it's just an arbitrary figure to divide the action into reasonable TT turns, but it would make for a much better starting point for cooldown than the couple of seconds we have now. Also, since you would be chain firing, you would fire at shorter intervals than now. I don't mind slow-paced action, but that specific TT figure would probably be a win-win for anyone wanting hectic 'mech action.

And my main beef is that I don't think MWO has ever really gone through that phase. In fact, the design is built around massive pinpoint alphas and it's actually getting worse (hello coolant flush and welcome omnimechs, if PGI ever manage to shoehorn them into the game in any reasonable way).

Instead of tackling the main problem, PGI have done drastic changes to the TT numbers, mangling the inherent balance in the process. We have never seen how the actual TT numbers would work in an environment that would give them a fighting chance. Chances are the balance between firepower, heat, weight and space would be better than now. Then we could start balancing the thing.

The biggest fear I have is that the current system based on a fundamentally unstable basis and balanced through gut feel and statistics caters only for a very specific set of tools and will break badly when for example a lot higher firepower (aka the Clans) or hardware (Guardian ECM, Angel ECM, artemis, arrow) is brought to play. The fact that things like severely op ECM are used as fundamental balancing elements (against missiles) in a game based on random team compositions is another can of worms, but I'm not interested in opening it in this discussion.

So no, this thread is not about people wanting to move their 'mechs in turns and throwing dice in combat.

Edited by AndyHill, 19 March 2013 - 08:19 AM.

[Syllogy]

Have you considered that the TableTop rules are unbalanced and not viable?

[Karl Streiger]

Syllogy, on 19 March 2013 - 07:29 AM, said:

You're right!

I demand that ALL WEAPONS HAVE A 10 SECOND COOLDOWN!

Seriously though, TT is not Canon. TT is a set of rules that are optimized for a board game.

And what is MWO. Its not Canon, too. Its simle a set of rules that are optimized for a simple, stupid First Person Shooter.

Syllogy, on 19 March 2013 - 08:14 AM, said:

Have you considered that the TableTop rules are unbalanced and not viable?

Have you did the same for MWO rules?



Really, seriously:
Abstract TT - see behind the 10sec or the 2.5sec rounds...think what will happen in real time...
thats how it should work.
MechCommander was named...some named MechWarrior 3.... there are examples that it is possible

Edited by Karl Streiger, 19 March 2013 - 08:16 AM.

[Syllogy]

Karl Streiger, on 19 March 2013 - 08:15 AM, said:

And what is MWO. Its not Canon, too. Its simle a set of rules that are optimized for a simple, stupid First Person Shooter.

I didn't make the argument that MWO's rules are Canon.

I also didn't make the argument that MWO is a "simple" shooter, dumbing it down to the likes of Call of Duty and Halo.

[Voivode]

dal10, on 08 March 2013 - 11:03 PM, said:

(this may be a bit out of line, but i can only withstand stupidity of certain magnitude. feel free to mod what you guys wish)

you sir, have not the slightest idea what you are talking about.

reasons why you have no idea what you are talking about:

Armor: if armor was not doubled, DO YOU HAVE ANY BLOODY IDEA HOW FAST THINGS WOULD DIE? imagine an atlas with 47 points of armor on its central torso, which is less than a hunchback has now. things that could almost (or fully) strip the torso in 1 salvo

3 srm 6 cent, ac/20 cat splat cat, 9 medium laser 4p, any lrm boat, 4 erppc stalker, 6 large laser stalker, 4 ppc 4 streak 2 stalker any atlas that has more than half a brain, the stock 9M awesome 6 medium pulse laser cicada, the noisy cricket,triple ultra 5 muromets, the stock stalker (just about any variant) 4 medium laser 2 srm 4 jenner, 3 srm 6 commando. do i really need to go on?

armor was doubled to help deal with the fact you can actually aim weapons. this game does not dice roll to decide hits, there would be no purpose in doing a FPS if you had to roll a die to decide if your weapon hit or not(and where it hit while you are at it). h3ll, i would even support the tripling of armor, as the game plays way too fast. mechs aren't supposed to go down in 10 seconds of firing from full armor.

triple weapons ROF. this is a simple one, how many people would play this game if it operated on 10 second turns? can you imagine how bored people would get if they had to wait 10 seconds to turn left or right and/fire weapons. this game would die due to the fact only a few hardcore players would even deign to acknowledge its existence.

dumb-fire srms. actually srms used to be the most accurate weapon in the game. initially they had a massive shotgun spread (quintuple the worst spread you have seen in OB and that would be about right) then pgi implented them as basically one missile. that was when the first boaters (splat cats...) appeared. they were notorious for headshots, as srms were basically missile lasers out to 270. have you ever seen a 90 damage headshot at 260 meters, i suffered one at the hands of a rather good player. yeah... even now srms are decent for killing lights if they don't have artemis, i just use them as an anti-light mech shotgun, a role they excel at.

ECM:

i don't mind this implementation too much anymore, i just wish that the detection range was 300 meters instead of 200 so you could actually target things without already being in the bubble. but i am not beating this dead horse again.

i am pretty sure ECM was the anti-bap not the other way around, though bap would know it was being jammed.

streaks always hit, due to stats, a lot of people have been noticing streaks hit around 75% of the time, but as 3rd guy said, there is no good way to implement them in a game like this.

This. All the way. A tabletop game is different from a video game.

[Karl Streiger]

I have thought a little bit...while feading my son...
Why do we have hit zones?
Why not break down all armor locations into a single one....each hit has however a chance (based on remaining protection, weapons strength) to penetrate the armor and deal internal damage. You look were the shot hit...and take a look if there are critical slots that could be damaged. It don't have to be random chance...it should be possible to create a formula for this

Edited by Karl Streiger, 19 March 2013 - 12:10 PM.

[Pht]

Ralgas, on 19 March 2013 - 02:52 AM, said:

Because as soon as you put real time aiming in...

I presume you mean, have the player directly control all of the aiming of the weapons?

In a MW video game the player is in direct control of a battlemech, not in direct control of it's weapons.

The 'Mech is what has to crunch the sensor inputs through its software to get a firing fix and the 'mech is what has to physically align the weapons.

Quote

...and remove much of the random chance associated with the tt system

You mean, remove the predictable and intuitive spread from the game that simulates the 'mechs ability to overcome whatever conditions are occuring when the mechwarrior pulls the trigger? :|

Quote

it will be just as unbalanced using full tt values

Specifically which of the TT values are what you're calling unbalanced?

Quote

...or simply boring (full 10 second wait between shots).

Not necessary for a good port of the TT combat mechanics. Heat controls the refire rate (can I fire this turn) for every weapon, even those with zero heat suffer from high wast heat levels - so, if you want something to fire faster than 10 seconds, add more heat.

Quote

If you truly want tt on the pc go take a look at tactics

Nobody on these forums wants megamek in 3d.

Who are you directing this comment at?

CG Oglethorpe Kerensky, on 19 March 2013 - 04:25 AM, said:

Table Top is an ABSTRACTION,

And so were/are every MW video game, and so are the novels...

Quote

a rule set to try to emulate what MWO does with pencil and paper because doing what MWO does in the 1980's wasn't possible. It was a flawed system that represented the best way the designers of the day could implement to making fighting gundams possible.

"flawed system" - every gaming system is flawed.

Besides which... what flaws... specifically? Do you actually know any?

Quote

Lets not forget that TT brought us such wonderful concepts as...

"Long" range missiles with an max range of just 630 meters.
50 caliber machine guns that can't inflict damage past 90 meters.
Ballistics weapons that (counter to physics) actually get shorter ranged as the kinetic energy increases.
Lasers that hit to full damage out to an arbitrary range then do no damage at all 30 meters further.
Then there is the joke of kinetic melee weapons in an age of particle cannons...
And let's not forget Roy Calbeck the anthropomorphic man/unicorn hybrid that was created after a long night of binge drinking and goes on to travel the multiverse and runs Erdani Light Horse.

Weapons ranges were abbreviated for due to table top playing area.

The mg's don't do damage vs mech grade armor past 90meters, you mean.

Ac20s don't carry more kinetic energy per actual round output. They fire groups of smaller munitions.

Of course the ranges were arbitrary... so... what. Besides which, again, tabletop playing area and you obviously don't know about the extreme range rule from maxtech or the LOS rule from Tactical ops.

Melee weapons - yes... so? if you're stupid enough to let someone get that close, you deserve to get your cockpit smashed in. Besides which, if we wanted "real life tech" we'd have the annoying mother in law in the cockpit ... some of us enjoy a bit of escapism.

"Roy Calbeck?" Ive read virtually all of the novels and never heard of this character and he doesn't bring up a single reference in the sarna wiki. ... Aren you mistaking fan stories for canonized stuff?

PaintedWolf, on 19 March 2013 - 07:11 AM, said:

This is hilarious. You get to see things like weapons firing every ten seconds.

Nope.

Quote

A single AC-2 hit sets off an ammo explosion, kills an assault Mech outright.

----

Mech walks within 90 meters of a target, fires and misses.

----

Mech fires at close range at target's right arm- hits left leg.

Shocking, that if a 'Mech is stripped of armor over an ammo bin that said ammo bin might get exploded by incoming fire .... or that there's any possibility that fresh armor might *ever* be penetrated.

----

Not unless said 'Mech is obscenely overheated, has a mental midget for a pilot, has taken so much battle damage that it's in tatters...

----

Nope.

Aim for the right arm, go onto the called shot aim right hit location table, and the chances of hitting the left leg is virtually nil, and said possiblility is there to represent the left leg being not behind the rest of the 'mech.

AKA, as we all know, it's not possible to hit things from either side that stick out from either side ... [/sarcasm].

[Pht]

Syllogy, on 19 March 2013 - 07:29 AM, said:

Seriously though, TT is not Canon.

Actually, they are, for determining 'Mech combat performance, along with two pieces of explanatory text in two BT source books:

http://bg.battletech...ic,26178.0.html

Syllogy, on 19 March 2013 - 08:14 AM, said:

Have you considered that the TableTop rules are unbalanced and not viable?

Have you considered that virtually everyone who posts this never gives anyone any reason to believe that they know any of the TT rules that they are claiming are unbalanced?

Edited by Pht, 19 March 2013 - 05:03 PM.

[Karl Streiger]

Pht has made good points. The pilot choses the target the Mech calculates a firing solution.
when you want to hit a special part of a enemy mech aim longer.

so yes some of your shots will miss... but nobody is talking about dice rolling. there are factors that have impact on the firing solution.
maybe you have even problems to get the crosshair on a target but your targeting n tracking system can deal with that.
it is obviously that the actual rof is stupid. double it up. 6s for ppc don't sound for a anoying long time.

[Syllogy]

PGI's internal testing found that with true Double Heat Sinks, that a 9ML Hunchback could repeatedly alpha-strike for up to 3 minutes without overheating.

That is Unbalanced.

[MustrumRidcully]

Syllogy, on 20 March 2013 - 07:02 AM, said:

PGI's internal testing found that with true Double Heat Sinks, that a 9ML Hunchback could repeatedly alpha-strike for up to 3 minutes without overheating.

Citation Needed*. The example I know is that of a 5 ML Cicada, and I don't thinik it made it to 3 minutes.

Quote

That is Unbalanced.

Why is it unbalanced?


*For the record, 9 MLs produce 9 heat per second. If you had 20 True Double heat Sinks, your heat capacity is 70 (30 + 2 * 20 = 70) and you dissipate 4 (20 * 0.2) per second, leaving you with 5 heat per second that you gain. That means you will overheat after (70/5 = ) 14 seconds.
Where do you get the other 160 seconds? (I give you 6 for free.) Once you told me that, tell me where you got the tonnage for 20 DHS on a Hunchback, and the 9 MLs.

So... What's your source? How did PGI suppodely figure this out?

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 20 March 2013 - 07:29 AM.