647 replies to this topic

[Nightcrept]

stjobe, on 14 March 2013 - 04:08 PM, said:

As a professional software developer, let me be the first to tell you that those two are not an equivalence. Bugs happen.


It did bug, not to a miilion, only to 12.9 per missile, "Quite a bit higher than the intended 2.5 damage per missile plus splash damage".

Now shoo.

I see your point. I see this as more of a balance issue then a bug issue. My personal feeling is that the in game effect was not something that they had a problem with to warrant what is going to be a big balancing effort. They have mentioned this problem in passing but not to the effect we now know it exists.

My point to all this is that the splash effect has been around for a long time and the game has been apparently balanced around it. Only now that someone has noticed the actual math are players going nuts.

And if we suddenly remove splash damage (which I doubt will happen) it would cause at this point some major balancing issues for the game to sort out.

But I do recognize tha something needs to be done just not how to do it without opening pandoras box.

[Nightcrept]

One Medic Army, on 14 March 2013 - 04:19 PM, said:

I've been saying that SSRMs were too good vs lights since they got their damage "fixed" and 100% hit rate.
SRMs hitting lights was fairly rare before the recent reductions to "lag armor".
LRMs hitting lights is also a fairly recent thing, it takes Artemis and TAG to get LRMs to chase a full-speed light mech around with any chance to hit it.

I think that covers it, the splash damage may have been there for a long time, but only recently has it become easy to hit light mechs with the affected weapons.

I remember having conversations with you about ssrms. They need major fixing that was never addresses and made worse by ecm.

[Nightcrept]

Vapor Trail, on 14 March 2013 - 04:25 PM, said:

"As coded" and "As intended" are capable of being two completely different things. Any programmer will tell you that.

Understood. I'm just looking at it in a different way.

I see it as a area effect and not a point impact. So the mass damage is naturally going to exist due to damage area effects from multiple rounds overlaping.

I guess I just took what was happening for granted and thought everyone else knew it was happening. I didn't and don't see a huge deal because it has been balanced in game. (with the exception of ssrms.)

I knew splash damage was dealing its own damage for a long time. I thought everyone else did too.

Edited by Nightcrept, 14 March 2013 - 04:36 PM.

[One Medic Army]

Nightcrept, on 14 March 2013 - 04:30 PM, said:

I remember having conversations with you about ssrms. They need major fixing that was never addresses and made worse by ecm.

My main point is that removing splash damage from missiles would have a relatively low effect on most chassis. The chassis which are adversely affected used to be more or less immune to splash weapons due to other factors.

It might serve as a buff to: awesome, medium mechs, light (non-ECM) mechs. Possibly one or two of the heavies.

An atlas doesn't care about splash damage on missiles, at worst it's taking damage in 2 sections instead of one, and it's taking a much larger pounding from ballistics and PPCs.

[Nightcrept]

Voidsinger, on 14 March 2013 - 04:28 PM, said:

There is just one major issue with the whole "new small mechs" approach.

That is, that the mech which suffers worst from splash and is the smallest mech in the game, is the Commando, Mech number 7, introduced in February 2012.

Splash breaks the armour system as soon as you go over the set amount of damage per missile.

This game doesn't exactly stick to the books though. I have no clue what the TT or other damages outside the game for things are supposed to be.

But players did beg for splash damage to be implemented. Go search and you will see.

The problem as I see it is still that the game has been balanced around the splash damage system. Removing or revamping it is best in the long run but how to replace it and the major re-balancing is going to be a pain.

[stjobe]

Nightcrept, on 14 March 2013 - 04:28 PM, said:

My point to all this is that the splash effect has been around for a long time and the game has been apparently balanced around it. Only now that someone has noticed the actual math are players going nuts.

People were quietly going nuts before they could test it in controlled environments - anyone that's piloted a Commando for any period of time can regale you with anecdotes of them going down way too easily from time to time.

Anyone that's piloted a SRM- or SSRM-heavy 'mech can regale you with anecdotes of Commandos and other lights insta-popping from SRMs. We've just assumed it's been due to general wonkiness or some other bug (it is beta after all, the game is expected to be buggy).

Nightcrept, on 14 March 2013 - 04:28 PM, said:

And if we suddenly remove splash damage (which I doubt will happen) it would cause at this point some major balancing issues for the game to sort out.

But I do recognize tha something needs to be done just not how to do it without opening pandoras box.

Removing splash damage won't open Pandora's box. It'll make the light non-ECM 'mechs (and the Commando in particular) more survivable (which is a good thing), and it'll have a lesser and lesser effect the higher you go in the weight classes.

And frankly, splash damage serves no purpose other than making heavier 'mechs have an effective armour bonus compared to lighter 'mechs.

[Nightcrept]

One Medic Army, on 14 March 2013 - 04:35 PM, said:

My main point is that removing splash damage from missiles would have a relatively low effect on most chassis. The chassis which are adversely affected used to be more or less immune to splash weapons due to other factors.

It might serve as a buff to: awesome, medium mechs, light (non-ECM) mechs. Possibly one or two of the heavies.

An atlas doesn't care about splash damage on missiles, at worst it's taking damage in 2 sections instead of one, and it's taking a much larger pounding from ballistics and PPCs.

The effect if the numbers are anywhere near correct would be, what say about a third of the damage the missiles deal are splash damage. That still creates a huge balancing issue. And if the splash radius works off the same system as the explosive area effects for other factors as well then it will be some work.

[Nightcrept]

stjobe, on 14 March 2013 - 04:40 PM, said:

People were quietly going nuts before they could test it in controlled environments - anyone that's piloted a Commando for any period of time can regale you with anecdotes of them going down way too easily from time to time.

Anyone that's piloted a SRM- or SSRM-heavy 'mech can regale you with anecdotes of Commandos and other lights insta-popping from SRMs. We've just assumed it's been due to general wonkiness or some other bug (it is beta after all, the game is expected to be buggy).


Removing splash damage won't open Pandora's box. It'll make the light non-ECM 'mechs (and the Commando in particular) more survivable (which is a good thing), and it'll have a lesser and lesser effect the higher you go in the weight classes.

And frankly, splash damage serves no purpose other than making heavier 'mechs have an effective armour bonus compared to lighter 'mechs.

See I don't have the same experiences as you. I run a lrm boat, a d-dc brawler with the standard set up and coms and other small mechs. I find them extremely easy to use. Even before ecm they were extremely easy to use since the removal of knock downs. I consider them easy mode.

From the numbers even on the atlas the splash damage was about a fourth wasn't it? That is a huge nerf if the game has been balanced around that. If it extends to lrms and area effects like ground impacts then isn't that a lot of rebalancing?

Not saying it shouldn't be done but isn't there another way like reducing the splash radius for each mech etc.

[HRR Insanity]

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

Second, this does NOT eliminate the findings that S-SRMs AND SRMs are doing more damage than intended. This is not due to some top secret, behind your back weapon balancing. It has to do with splash damage, how it was first implemented and the new smaller Mechs coming out.

So what has happened to cause this? Smaller Mechs and more complex geometry than what was available when the splash damage system first went into the game. When SRM splash damage went into the game, there were a total of 4 Mechs available to the playerbase. The Jenner, Hunchback, Catapult and the Atlas. These 4 Mechs have very unique targeting silhouettes and were used to calculate the radius of splash damage per missile. Now what has happened is that the splash damage across smaller Mechs or Mechs with more complex/tighter component positioning are getting hit with more splash damage than intended.

In the image below, you can see how much overlap the damage done to the Commando has and how that it is taking significantly more splash damage than it should.

We are looking at the tuning for these hit locations/splash damage and will update as soon as possible.

Simple fix. Remove splash damage. It has unintended behavior, is impossible to balance vs. 'Mechs with different sizes and hitboxes and clearly breaks the damage model in terrible ways (especially with a good pilot who will target the interface between two hitboxes).

Remove it.

[Hayashi]

From my experience LRMs also have this effect. I've been killed by a single LRM20 volley on my Commando before from full health - something that's utterly impossible even for 40 LRMs on either my Raven or Jenner.

Also, we should not just bring down the damage of missiles, as this bug is causing different mechs to take differing amounts of damage from the same weapons. This gives certain chassis effectively up to 4x the armour against missiles of other chassis given the same armour tonnage. Should missiles be nerfed to the extent that they no longer become an I-win button against let's say, the Commando, then they will become nearly useless against Ravens.

Outright removing splash damage effects will remove this problem, but will introduce another one which it initially solved - ie, damage that is too concentrated by missiles, especially Streaks and LRMs. Simply put, it damages the Centre Torso way too much and the other parts way too little, making it an overly easy way to core a Mech. On a splatcat at pointblank range, it has the potential to one-shot an Atlas in the rear Centre Torso, which isn't exactly a good thing.

Edited by Hayashi, 14 March 2013 - 05:02 PM.

[Bloody Moon]

Nightcrept, seriously stop trolling this thread. This is a bug confirmed by a dev, no reason to defend the current missile implementation.

A whole missile overhaul should've happened months ago anyway along with improvements on tons of core MWO functions which were somehow left alone ever since the early Closed Beta. Now is the time to finish these parts of the game.

[Nightcrept]

Exacatly, that whole balance thing people keep telling me I'n nuts to go on about.

I understand the numbers balance players are seeking but I also see the in game effects of removing it entirely without counter balancing.

The problem is from my pov that the whole system is in parts intertwined with splash damage.

[p4r4g0n]

Hayashi, on 14 March 2013 - 04:58 PM, said:

-snip-
Outright removing splash damage effects will remove this problem, but will introduce another one which it initially solved - ie, damage that is too concentrated by missiles, especially Streaks and LRMs. Simply put, it damages the Centre Torso way too much and the other parts way too little, making it an overly easy way to core a Mech. On a splatcat at pointblank range, it has the potential to one-shot an Atlas in the rear Centre Torso, which isn't exactly a good thing.

6 X SRM6 X 2.5/missile = 90 dmg without splash. With splash and from pointblank range, the damage done would be 90 base dmg + splash damage. I don't understand how removing splash makes it any easier to 1 shot any mech in the rear centre torso.

Could you clarify please?

AFAIK, splash =/= missile spread

Edited by p4r4g0n, 14 March 2013 - 05:13 PM.

[Phaesphoros]

Hayashi, on 14 March 2013 - 04:58 PM, said:

Outright removing splash damage effects will remove this problem, but will introduce another one which it initially solved - ie, damage that is too concentrated by missiles, especially Streaks and LRMs.

There is a problem with excess splash damage, that is, 2.5 pin-point dmg + varying amounts of extra splash damage. Missile spread is the way to counter excessive CT dmg, that is, not all missiles should hit the CT. And Artemis providing less spread => more missiles to CT.
If the dmg was split up between the splashed sections, then it could help solve this issue. However, Artemis could not counter this effect and a realistic splash has the same size for all mechs.

IMHO, you can adjust spread much more easy and intuitive for different mechs, so that % hitting CT is about the same for each mech.

[HRR Insanity]

Hayashi, on 14 March 2013 - 04:58 PM, said:

Outright removing splash damage effects will remove this problem, but will introduce another one which it initially solved - ie, damage that is too concentrated by missiles, especially Streaks and LRMs. Simply put, it damages the Centre Torso way too much and the other parts way too little, making it an overly easy way to core a Mech. On a splatcat at pointblank range, it has the potential to one-shot an Atlas in the rear Centre Torso, which isn't exactly a good thing.

1. All missiles need to have their spread patterns changed, not do splash damage. This is an easy tuning thing after splash damage is removed.
2. SRMs need to be 'ripple fired', not 'clump fired'. This solves the concentrated damage issue much the same way that lasers are currently implemented.

Problems solved.

[Nightcrept]

Bloody Moon, on 14 March 2013 - 05:03 PM, said:

Nightcrept, seriously stop trolling this thread. This is a bug confirmed by a dev, no reason to defend the current missile implementation.

A whole missile overhaul should've happened months ago anyway along with improvements on tons of core MWO functions which were somehow left alone ever since the early Closed Beta. Now is the time to finish these parts of the game.

I am not defending the current system thank you very much. Though I do not think it is a bug which is were most people disagree with me. If you read my millions of posts you will see.

I think the devs balanced the game against a faulty design and have gotten themselves in a bind now that players discovered it.
I also have said it needs to go away but that missiles would need to be buffed for them to stay in balance in game or the whole system would need to be reworked.

The reason i don't consider it a bug is because it has been around for sooo long and the devs never bothered to change it. It's not something that suddenly flared up. When they tested all the new mechs it was there in their tests damaging the new mechs. Right? So like many other things they threw the new mechs in game out of balance i.e ssrm's, ecm etc. So what the op did was not discover a bug but a Major balancing issue.


Due to the lack of splash damage balancing all missiles have a lower point damage modifier then they should because the splash damage causes a larger then normal in game experience. So my argument that started the whole fight was that most players consider lrms and srms to be balanced in game. So if we removed the artificial damage caused by the splash damage we would need to buff the missile damage and open the spread to keep them in balance. Otherwise major changes would be needed due to loss of overall actual damage in game.

[Monky]

Outright removing splash damage is the only workable solution that can be quickly implemented. If a spread/damage reassessment is necessary, so be it, but splash damage is currently providing multiples of the amount of damage the missile is supposed to do in many situations, and capping the missile damage for splash at the current max damage per missile (2.5 srm/1.9 lrm) would essentially turn them into paperweights due to said splash mechanics causing all of the damage to spread over multiple armor pieces

it's like this, with splash as it is, the weapons are situationally providing a huge advantage. with capped splash, the weapons will situationally provide a huge disadvantage.

It needs to be patched out until a work around can be implemented that doesn't change the usefulness depending on target/angle of attack beyond things that already affect other weapons.

Edited by Monky, 14 March 2013 - 05:22 PM.

[Voidsinger]

Hayashi, on 14 March 2013 - 04:58 PM, said:

Outright removing splash damage effects will remove this problem, but will introduce another one which it initially solved - ie, damage that is too concentrated by missiles, especially Streaks and LRMs. Simply put, it damages the Centre Torso way too much and the other parts way too little, making it an overly easy way to core a Mech. On a splatcat at pointblank range, it has the potential to one-shot an Atlas in the rear Centre Torso, which isn't exactly a good thing.

There is an alternate solution.

Instead of making splash damage on top of base damage for a missile, make a missile damage (core + splash).

Core damage is applied to the location hit. Splash damage would be applied to the percentage of surface area in the sphere covered by the explosive radius (even if this is the same location as core).

This would make all armour equal across tonnages, with larger mechs taking more damage to the struck location, whereas lighter mechs would take more splash to locations around where the hit occurred.

The key here is that there would be a maximum amount per missile applied, not an open ended above damage amount fest we currently have that favours assaults most. Sure it might take a bit of testing to get the right damages per missile, but it would be an even playing field.

[TOGSolid]

Nightcrept, on 14 March 2013 - 05:04 PM, said:

Exacatly, that whole balance thing people keep telling me I'n nuts to go on about.

I understand the numbers balance players are seeking but I also see the in game effects of removing it entirely without counter balancing.

The problem is from my pov that the whole system is in parts intertwined with splash damage.

Except that this is completely inane to do. You never do a big change like this and throw in a buff right on top of it without getting proper data first. These things have to be done in steps otherwise you don't learn anything from it and run a huge risk of screwing it up. Fix the bug/remove splash/whatever, release it to the masses to get data and feedback, and THEN buff the system if needed. Once again, this is just basic design 101.

[Warrax the Chaos Warrior]

Nightcrept, on 14 March 2013 - 05:19 PM, said:

I am not defending the current system thank you very much. Though I do not think it is a bug which is were most people disagree with me. If you read my millions of posts you will see.

I think the miscommunication here is that your definition of a "bug" is different from what everyone else's is.

The software is doing something that the developers didn't expect it to do= bug. The fact that there may or may not have been a flaw in the actual code is irrelevant, it's still a "bug".