647 replies to this topic

[Inyc]

Warrax the Chaos Warrior, on 14 March 2013 - 09:57 AM, said:

Either one could work.

I prefer option 1. I think it would be easier to implement, and might have less room to cause additional bugs. That's just speculation on my part though.

I prefer options 2. I feel that missiles shouldn't be used for pinpoint damage. We already have ballistics, PPCs for that. Lasers are in between in that they can spread their damage or concentrate it. Missiles should have more spread damage.

[Vapor Trail]

I wound up taking an LRM boat into the training grounds several days ago. I kept one-shotting the Awesome with 50 LRMs.

[Nightcrept]

Xendojo, on 14 March 2013 - 10:39 AM, said:

This is not about balance, it's about us as testers saying "HEY PGI!!! YOUR SH*T IS BROKEN SO FIX IT PLEASE!!"

Balance comes later.

I have no problem with that. Simply because it is going to be extremely difficult to balance a game if there are hidden modifiers. And lord knows if there are hidden modifiers people scream BUG BUG like a bunch of old ladies...lol

[Vapor Trail]

Inyc, on 14 March 2013 - 10:53 AM, said:

I prefer options 2. I feel that missiles shouldn't be used for pinpoint damage. We already have ballistics, PPCs for that. Lasers are in between in that they can spread their damage or concentrate it. Missiles should have more spread damage.

I think I lean the same way, but for a different reason. Missiles in TT weren't pinpoint. They scattered, and it was guesswork as to how many you'd hit with, when you hit.

An SRM6 averages 4 missiles hitting in TT when you account for the spread on the missile table. However, range is not a factor in how much damage you do with an SRM6 when you it. That spread is purely random, except with Artemis.

If I were designing the SRM6 missile damage profile, I'd probably start by having the missiles doing 1.5 damage per missile (with a random -0.5 to +0.5 damage addition, per missile). I'd have the static damage component increase, and the random damage component decrease, until the static was doing 2 damage per missile (probably at about 75m), and from there rely on just the random spread of the missiles to determine exactly how much damage the system dealt. for a time (probably out to 200m), then add a random +0.1 to +2.0 damage from 200 to 270m.

If further positive balancing was deemed necessary, increasing the static damage component (as well as the random damage components) seem like no-brainer tweak possibilities to me.

The purpose is to keep the SRM balanced across the entirety of it's range... and not make it stupid powerful up close, and completely laughable at range.

Edited by Vapor Trail, 14 March 2013 - 11:09 AM.

[wuselfuzz]

Nightcrept, on 14 March 2013 - 10:34 AM, said:

The numbers don't matter nor does TT or BT lore.

The numbers do matter. The mechlab says 6 missiles, 2.5 damage each. That's 15 damage. The experiment shows that an SRM6 does more than that. That's a bug. If balance (NOT the point of this thread) requires higher/lower missile damage, the numbers should show this and not an arbitrary number.

Quote

This isn't rocket science.

More like... missile science.

[HighTest]

I have to wonder how much of the devs' discussion about the balance of ECM is based on stats and telemetry that may be misleading given the nature of this bug.

If they look at mech damage / kills / deaths / etc. based on game-based stats, they might be thinking that lights really are going down quickly, so ECM is not overpowered at this point, and that it should stay as it is.

But what they perhaps don't realize is that when they DO go down, it may be largely in part to the overpowered missile damage. Posts here have been suggesting for ages to use SRMs against ECM lights.

Now, let's assume we use either of the 'fixes' that I postulated earlier, and it turns out that now lights with ECM almost never go down. Now stats and telemetry might help the devs tweak ECM accordingly. One might suspect that ECM is currently balanced the way that it is because of the missile issue... Perhaps it's currently a band-aid over another band-aid.

Please do NOT make this an ECM thread now. I just wanted to make this point, as I found it interesting.

But the overall point, I suppose, is YES -- even if this issue is fixed, it's certain that missiles (among many other things!) will need to be rebalanced entirely again anyway, because the solution to the problem will likely have a major effect on damage balance (desired or not).

[Inyc]

Thontor, on 14 March 2013 - 10:57 AM, said:

The fact that missiles generally come in volleys pretty much guarantee they aren't going to be doing pinpoint damage. Each missile individual will be, but the volley as a whole won't.

In quite a few situations I've been able to get 8 to 10 missiles from an LRM 10 to hit the single torso only of a mech. Tag and Artemis stacking on mechs that were running straight at me. SRMs out of a centurtion at sub 50 meters almost garantee hitting a single component as well since they all shoot out of a single point. Though I think having no splash to missiles and slightly increasing the spread would also work fine.

Maybe a good way to keep SRMs as "sandblasters" would be to give them splash that can never be more than 2.5 per missile. So the 2.5 is simply divided amongst the number of components hit. They'll still be great damage weapons, but they won't be used to straight up murder targets.

LRMs could lose the splash which would reward you for using Artemis / Tag / NARC and keeping sight on your target with better damage.

[Nightcrept]

Gevurah, on 14 March 2013 - 10:41 AM, said:

To the people claiming we need to increase missile damage for 'balance' if we remove splash:

In what world is a catapult that can oneshot 90% of the mechs in the game, or for that matter 2-3 chassis which take 7X as much damage as larger chassis by virtue of being smaller balanced?

It's not.
You're trying to talk intelligently to defend your advantage.
Everyone sees what you're doing and in the end, you are just looking like ***holes.
So stop now and save yourself some face for crying out loud.

Ok. Your not a very bright one are you.
YOU DO NOT BALANCE A WEAPON AROUND BOATERS YOU BALANCE THE BOAT.

Smaller mechs taking a ton of damage isn't as big of a deal if the end result is supposed to be the same. If they are suposed to die from a full on hit from a srm-6 (which never happens in game). Then it doesn't matter if it is from splash damage or a srm-6 dealing 3.5 damage.

The only difference will be that we will be able to see the numbers and not have any hidden modifiers.

WardenWolf, on 14 March 2013 - 10:41 AM, said:

I don't recall any time, all the way back to July of last year when I joined closed beta, that SRMs were not used pretty widely. LRMs have gone through several revisions, it is true, but I used them all along and they have always been viable - even when they did less damage per shot. If anything, and especially if they are also doing excess splash damage, I think they may be overpowered currently (ECM is what keeps it from being as apparent, but that is a whole other can of worms).

Lrms were found to be unusable below 1.7. WE have beat that horse to death.
Lrms are almost useless now unless your playing against new players or the really bad ones.
Srms have been used becuase there wasn't even a different option. However there have been times you saw far fewer in game.

[Inyc]

Nightcrept, on 14 March 2013 - 11:12 AM, said:

Smaller mechs taking a ton of damage isn't as big of a deal if the end result is supposed to be the same. If they are suposed to die from a full on hit from a srm-6 (which never happens in game).

But they're not.

[TOGSolid]

Quote

Smaller mechs taking a ton of damage isn't as big of a deal if the end result is supposed to be the same. If they are suposed to die from a full on hit from a srm-6 (which never happens in game). Then it doesn't matter if it is from splash damage or a srm-6 dealing 3.5 damage.

And why exactly are you assuming that SRMs are supposed to do that? Your entire argument revolves around you assuming the current SRM ability to one shot lights is intentional.

You never, ever, ever put in a buff at the same time you resolve a bug like that. Fix the bug and then see what happens in the field. Only after getting plenty of hard data do you then implement another tweak. This **** is like game development 101, I'm not sure why some of you don't understand that process.

[Nightcrept]

Thontor, on 14 March 2013 - 10:57 AM, said:

A single SRM6 is not boating

A single SRM6 one shotting a Commando when 3 medium lasers don't even breach the armor is not intended... both should be doing 15 damage according to the in game firepower scale

The fact that missiles do more than 4x damage against a Commando than they do against an Atlas is clearly unintended and flat out unfair and not balanced.

Missiles are supposed to do their listed damage, they are balanced around that number... They are not balanced based on the results we are seeing in game though, which is much higher than that number.



The fact that missiles generally come in volleys pretty much guarantee they aren't going to be doing pinpoint damage. Each missile individual will be, but the volley as a whole won't.

How do you know what was intended?

Since we have been playing with the results in game for months with little crying. So that can be taken as a indication that the effect was intended although the method may not have been.

wuselfuzz, on 14 March 2013 - 11:07 AM, said:

The numbers do matter. The mechlab says 6 missiles, 2.5 damage each. That's 15 damage. The experiment shows that an SRM6 does more than that. That's a bug. If balance (NOT the point of this thread) requires higher/lower missile damage, the numbers should show this and not an arbitrary number.



More like... missile science.

No they stated in a patch way back in nov that they were adding splash damage in combination with norm damage. They jsut didn't tell us how much. So it isn't a bug unless the results are more then they wanted.

[Gevurah]

Nightcrept, on 14 March 2013 - 11:12 AM, said:

Ok. Your not a very bright one are you.
YOU DO NOT BALANCE A WEAPON AROUND BOATERS YOU BALANCE THE BOAT.

Smaller mechs taking a ton of damage isn't as big of a deal if the end result is supposed to be the same. If they are suposed to die from a full on hit from a srm-6 (which never happens in game). Then it doesn't matter if it is from splash damage or a srm-6 dealing 3.5 damage.

The only difference will be that we will be able to see the numbers and not have any hidden modifiers.



Lrms were found to be unusable below 1.7. WE have beat that horse to death.
Lrms are almost useless now unless your playing against new players or the really bad ones.
Srms have been used becuase there wasn't even a different option. However there have been times you saw far fewer in game.

Nightcrept, on 14 March 2013 - 11:15 AM, said:

How do you know what was intended?

Since we have been playing with the results in game for months with little crying. So that can be taken as a indication that the effect was intended although the method may not have been.

I'm incredibly bright, thank you very much. Attempts to degrade me with insults don't invalidate what I'm saying.

Moreover, this isn't our first go-around for mechwarrior games. This is a really simple concept - but let me spell it out for you since you're struggling with it.

IT IS A BUG NOT A FEATURE

Edited by Gevurah, 14 March 2013 - 11:18 AM.

[Nightcrept]

Inyc, on 14 March 2013 - 11:13 AM, said:

But they're not.

We know what srms are supposed to deal. We know they added splash damage above that in nov. We know we have been playing with the results for months.

[TOGSolid]

Quote

indication that the effect was intended although the method may not have been.

No, it's an indication that nobody knew better. How you are inferring that that obviously means it's intentional I have no idea. Though if you look at the current metagame what's rampant? A lot of the most prevalent mechs all carry tons of SRMs because they're just so damn good. Now we know why and it is a fundamental problem that needs to be resolved.

Edited by TOGSolid, 14 March 2013 - 11:20 AM.

[Warrax the Chaos Warrior]

Nick Carlile, on 14 March 2013 - 10:08 AM, said:

If the game has been balanced for the last 4 months with this happening. Then yes.

Do you feel that currently in game when you are using them, that an SRM4 is overpowered? Or does too much damage?

Or when you shoot an LRM15 that it's way too uber?

I would wager if you asked anyone that right now. They'd say no they are fine.

So if you fix the bug you have to buff them.



This isn't about tabletop, but actual weapon use in the game.

Do you feel that an SRM 6 doing a lot less damage and having it be spread is going to be worth taking?

I've actually been wondering for awhile why missiles have been gaining so much dominance lately, and I'm sure they would be even more dominate if people had known about the glitch.

Word about this thread has gotten out, and the few matches I've played this morning already have a lot more missile boats than I've gotten used to seeing lately. It was already excessive before, now there are a whole lot more of them.

I thought they were balanced before the splash damage was added (back in December was it?). So I would argue that they do not need to be buffed once the glitch is fixed. Sure, you'll see fewer missiles on the field, but the ones that are there will still be useful.

[Nightcrept]

Gevurah, on 14 March 2013 - 11:18 AM, said:

I'm incredibly bright, thank you very much. Attempts to degrade me with insults don't invalidate what I'm saying.

Moreover, this isn't our first go-around for mechwarrior games. This is a really simple concept - but let me spell it out for you since you're struggling with it.

IT IS A BUG NOT A FEATURE

Says you and you have no proof.
They told us when they added splash damage. So how is it being there a bug?

[Nightcrept]

Thontor, on 14 March 2013 - 11:22 AM, said:

The firepower meter in the mechlab tells me it is intended that a srm6 do the same damage as three medium lasers... Both are 15

As for the patch you are referring to, im pretty sure it didn't say that the damage was in addition to the listed firepower.

People through fits and asked. It was in addition.
They spread out the missiles and added splash.

Edited by Nightcrept, 14 March 2013 - 11:23 AM.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Nightcrept, on 14 March 2013 - 11:20 AM, said:

Says you and you have no proof.
They told us when they added splash damage. So how is it being there a bug?

SRM2 is dealing more damage to a Commando than a Gauss Rifle when fired into the chest; I tested and confirmed this. It is not intended, trust me. There's no way the Developers intended for SRM2 to deal more damage than a Gauss Rifle.

Edit - It's a good thing Matt Craig already posted in this thread that they (the Dev Team) will be making a posting about this issue later today.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 14 March 2013 - 11:25 AM.

[Nightcrept]

HighTest, on 14 March 2013 - 11:08 AM, said:

I have to wonder how much of the devs' discussion about the balance of ECM is based on stats and telemetry that may be misleading given the nature of this bug.

If they look at mech damage / kills / deaths / etc. based on game-based stats, they might be thinking that lights really are going down quickly, so ECM is not overpowered at this point, and that it should stay as it is.

But what they perhaps don't realize is that when they DO go down, it may be largely in part to the overpowered missile damage. Posts here have been suggesting for ages to use SRMs against ECM lights.

Now, let's assume we use either of the 'fixes' that I postulated earlier, and it turns out that now lights with ECM almost never go down. Now stats and telemetry might help the devs tweak ECM accordingly. One might suspect that ECM is currently balanced the way that it is because of the missile issue... Perhaps it's currently a band-aid over another band-aid.

Please do NOT make this an ECM thread now. I just wanted to make this point, as I found it interesting.

But the overall point, I suppose, is YES -- even if this issue is fixed, it's certain that missiles (among many other things!) will need to be rebalanced entirely again anyway, because the solution to the problem will likely have a major effect on damage balance (desired or not).

Exactly my point.

[MaddMaxx]

Vapor Trail, on 14 March 2013 - 08:51 AM, said:

Ok... some further testing...

Turns out SRMs have an approximate six to seven meter blast radius.

Six meters. Even as an approximate value it's huge for what is essentially a direct fire weapon.

No wonder a Commando takes it from toes to top-hat from an SRM strike.

Methodology: Use the 270m max range of SRMs to detonate them at a known point. Place the target outside this point and move it slowly closer until damage registers. Record distance. Repeat for veracity.

Demonstration Video:

What would be ever better is to have an Observer standing side on to the target to show the missiles NOT arriving but detonating.