647 replies to this topic

[ViKingOmega]

well im glad that the devs looked into this and confirmed it as true. man great work OP way to help us out. Knowing that this is really happening im not going to play anymore until this gets fixed. Im not saying everyone should boycott but i dont want to play a game where one set of weapons does radically different amounts of damage to different mechs. especially since i play cicadas right now and i noticed that i was getting totally creamed by missiles when i bought my x-5. It sounds like the fix is to remove splash damage until the system that operates it can be fixed. i mean i dont think they can just make a few quick adjustments and have splash damage fixed, if they can great. however TT didnt have any splash damage, i dont really know why its in this game in the first place. take it out!

[Diablobo]

So rather than take out splash damage, the devs are trying to fix it? Why? Splash damage makes no sense. This is Mechwarrior Online, not Waterballooner Online.

Edited by Diablobo, 15 March 2013 - 07:40 AM.

[Haitchpeasauce]

Just did a very small test in Live, firing on a friendly target.

CTF-2X (430 armor, 653 HP)
srm damage = 2.1 per missile (87% of expected).
This is strange and requires further testing.

SPD-5D (208 armor, 319 HP)
srm damage = 7.5 per missile (287% of expected).

[Comassion]

Diablobo, on 15 March 2013 - 07:39 AM, said:

So rather than take out splash damage, the devs are trying to fix it? Why? Splash damage makes no sense. This is Mechwarrior Online, not Waterballooner Online.

Agreed. splash damage shouldn't be in place for missiles. As these are missiles designed to attack other 'mechs, you're probably looking at armor-piercing rather than high explosive warheads, which don't do much damage beyond their point of impact, and since these 'mechs are armored then any secondary fragmentation or blast wave from the explosion should pretty much just bounce off. There's a reason you don't fire high explosive shells at tanks when you have AP handy, and that's because it's mostly just going to annoy the tank (until you have an HE shell of appropriate size, at least - there's always a breaking point).

Consider how strange the current splash damage mechanic is. It looks like any section within the splash radius takes full or close to full damage. That means that a missile that hits right on the seam between the left torso and the center torso will do about 2.5 damage to each section. But keep in mind that these locations are game abstractions - there's no actual 'seam' in the armor on the 'mech dividing the sections, it's just a way to track locational damage as a holdover from TableTop rules. A missile that hits a 'mech should remove 2.5 points of armor, total, no matter where it hits. Right now a hit on a large 'mech could remove up to 5 armor if it hit a seam somewhere, and as we've seen on the commando you might catch the whole thing in a blast, doing 15 points of damage with a single missile.

The two solutions that present themselves are the following:

1. Remove splash damage from missiles. If they hit a section, do 2.5 damage to that section - end of story. No need for extra blast radius calculations.
2. Keep splash damage, but divide the damage evenly among the hit components such that the damage adds up to 2.5. For example, when you hit a 'seam' between the torsos, each torso takes 1.25 damage.

Either of these would make the missiles make more sense, and addresses any possible future issues with hitbox locations. We've got the Flea coming, after all.

For those that are arguing that missiles need this sort of splash damage, I disagree, but even if you do think that this would somehow make missiles too weak, I suggest that they correct this particular mechanic and then re-balance missile damage and spread as necessary. Consider that the Splatcat is the current FOTM for good reason - a 90-point alpha in the back with the potential for several of those hits to do double damage is still incredibly nasty if those missiles aren't doubling their damage.

Edited by Comassion, 15 March 2013 - 08:31 AM.

[Haitchpeasauce]

ciller, on 15 March 2013 - 06:38 AM, said:

My only problem is that I can alpha my CN9-A 3xsrm6 into the face of a jenner/cicada/raven 3 or 4 times and not kill him. Or clearly shoot them with my AC20 with hits being registered 3-4 times and they just don't die.

Something is wrong with that. Those types of hits with that type of damage should devastate a light, yet they don't. It may be due to some sort of lag shield still but it frustrates me when I get the perfect shot with a major weapon on a light, it registers on the reticule as a hit and yet nothing really happens to the light, maybe a bit of yellowing in the armor. SO FRUSTRATING!

I know that has nothing to do with this threads bug fix, other then the srm's will do even less damage now, right? Which means they might survive 5-6 salvos to the face now.

(In training grounds the lights die instantly more or less to 1 or 2 shots.)

Ciller, this is a separate problem that many people in my corp, myself included, have noticed.

A point blank, group fired, stationary fired shot against a stationary target (like an Atlas), and the missile damage barely registers.

This is a server problem of non-registering hits.

This is separate to the splash-damage issue discussed here, and does not cancel it out.

Try chain firing the shots... see how you go.

[Haitchpeasauce]

This was a friendly and willing target. Thanks SweetWarmIce!

I aim at CT to avoid the legs and splash as many upper locations as possible. I'm looking for the upper limit of damage because this shows a correlation between geometry and damage taken.

I will need to test shots directed at the arms.

The point was to see if there is any correlation between Live and Testing Grounds. Can testing grounds numbers be trusted?

The answer is not conclusive yet and it's quite possible that there are server side issues.

[Paul Inouye]

Just an update. We will be removing splash damage until further tuning can be done that takes into account the new Mechs and their respective hit boxes. The splash damage will be removed in the April 2nd patch.

[stjobe]

Paul Inouye, on 15 March 2013 - 08:58 AM, said:

Just an update. We will be removing splash damage until further tuning can be done that takes into account the new Mechs and their respective hit boxes. The splash damage will be removed in the April 2nd patch.

Good call, Paul - and thank you ever so much for keeping us up to speed on this!

[Eddy Hawkins]

Paul Inouye, on 15 March 2013 - 08:58 AM, said:

Just an update. We will be removing splash damage until further tuning can be done that takes into account the new Mechs and their respective hit boxes. The splash damage will be removed in the April 2nd patch.

and there was much rejoicing to be had!

[arghmace]

Marvellous research by OP.

Raven hit locations are very compact so this explains why I seem to explode right away in my 2X or 4X when encountering ECM-Streak lights.

In a way, I don't see splash damage a real problem with dumb-fire missiles, but perhaps the streaks should be omitted any splash at all?

[Gevurah]

Wish it was sooner but glad to see they're going to remove it.

[Amaris the Usurper]

Maybe it's superfluous now, given the response from Paul, but here are some live test results: http://mwomercs.com/...-test-results/.

[Mister Blastman]

Just remove it now with a hotfix! It is a simple stat file change...

[arghmace]

A very simple suggestion: splash is fine but the total amount of damage done should be covering the whole area. So when you shoot an Atlas in CT and the splash area is contained in CT, it does 2.5 there. But when you shoot a smaller mech and the splash overlaps side torsos, the damage is divided accordingly. For instance 1.5 to CT and 0.5 to both side torsos. Having the damage multiplied is the problem, not the splash in itself.

[Star Colonel Mustard Kerensky]

Mister Blastman, on 15 March 2013 - 09:14 AM, said:

Just remove it now with a hotfix! It is a simple stat file change...

Nothing is ever that simple. Especially something that involves altering how missiles do their damage.

[arghmace]

Do we have info on the splash radius of different weapons? As far as I know, missiles aren't the only splashers. When I put an AC-20 round into enemy chest, I'm pretty sure he flashes in many locations. So maybe AC-20 does like 100 damage to Commando

[Sagamore]

Thanks for the response, Paul. But I can't wait until April 2nd to use my commando again... Maybe I'll play a splatcat until then.

[ShadowSpirit]

Paul Inouye, on 14 March 2013 - 12:53 PM, said:

{{Insert explanation of splash damage and why it isn't working as intended.}}

... so this is another case of going back to the source material for the solution. In the tabletop missles were always rolled in sets of 5 (I think) and you would roll the hit location each time. Right now it seems to be splashes based on geometric bounds and that obviously will not work across all the mechs. All you really need to do is take the damage and spread it to adjacent parts on a hit.

Example:

10 missiles hit ... roll a random number to hit X and the remainder goes random to adjacent hit locations.

RT hit will spread to the CT and RA for example but not do enhanced damage due to geometric spread.

LRMs and SRMs should not be precision weapons.

Thanks.

SS

[Tickdoff Tank]

Astroniomix, on 15 March 2013 - 09:19 AM, said:

Nothing is ever that simple. Especially something that involves altering how missiles do their damage.

I agree. The change is simple in concept, but probably non-trivial in execution.

arghmace, on 15 March 2013 - 09:19 AM, said:

Do we have info on the splash radius of different weapons? As far as I know, missiles aren't the only splashers. When I put an AC-20 round into enemy chest, I'm pretty sure he flashes in many locations. So maybe AC-20 does like 100 damage to Commando

Test it on the Training Grounds and post a video/screenshots. This thread has proven that action will be taken on a verified issue.

[Super Mono]

Paul Inouye, on 15 March 2013 - 08:58 AM, said:

Just an update. We will be removing splash damage until further tuning can be done that takes into account the new Mechs and their respective hit boxes. The splash damage will be removed in the April 2nd patch.

I wouldn't mind if it didn't come back. Trying to balance a damage system designed for a taletop game that assumes every mech is the same size with splash damage on mechs with wildly different proportions and geometries can not be easy.