673 replies to this topic

[Paul Inouye]

The Hotfix

What it addresses:
The insane amount of damage missiles started doing including splash damage and something weird that caused said splash damage to spike through the roof.

How it used to work:

(Note: I'm going to use the term 'secondary component' below but you can read it as 'a component that did not get hit directly but is taking splash damage')

All missiles used to have a 4.0m splash damage radius that took into account the percentage of the volume of secondary components engulfed in the radius.

With the advent of smaller/tighter component groupings on the smaller Mechs, an issue arose where too much splash damage was being spread across those Mechs. Basically it turned into a hot mess.

What does the hotfix do?
A number of things. First off, it reduces the splash damage radius from 4.0m (for both LRM/SRM) to 1.8m (LRM) and 1.3m (SRM/SSRM). This obviously reduces the amount of splash damage caused to secondary components.

Any location directly hit by a missile takes the full damage. Any secondary component hit by the splash damage radius takes splash damage based on how far the location is from the center of the explosion.

We also added a scaling factor of 0.4 to the amount of damage done to secondary components. From the impact point to the outer radius of splash damage, this factor of 0.4 drops linearly to 0.0. This means that if somehow magically the point of impact is so close to the secondary component, the maximum damage it would take from splash is WEAPON DAMAGE * 0.4 (that is 40% of weapon damage).

But Paul, you said you'd REMOVE splash damage!!!!
I know I did, but here's the kicker and yet another part of the mystery of missile damage. We tried removing splash damage and it did exactly what you think it was going to do. Pinpoint on target damage. Cool right? Yes... but...

Doing this exposed a problem with the grouping/clustering of missiles. We now have a high percentage of any incoming missile targeting the CT. This is BAD.

Now our primary concern as to what is happening on the live servers is to curtail the incredibly high damage levels of missiles/explosions. To make the missile explosions/damage feel like they should and to keep the damage spread across a Mech, we kept the above mentioned splash damage work along with the following damage changes to missiles:

LRMs drop from 1.8 damage per missile to 0.7 damage per missile.
SRMs drop from 2.5 damage per missile to 1.5 damage per missile.

DO NOT HIT REPLY TO FREAKOUT YET!

It is at these levels that missile combat falls back to a level that we AND the community felt was right for a long period of time before the badness appeared. I'm going to ask you to help us test these values by FEEL. Not by playing SpreadsheetWarrior.


Missiles are STILL a very big threat to the target but just aren't doing these chart topping damage numbers.

THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THIS MESSAGE:
This is a TEMPORARY fix to quell the damage done by missiles at this time. We are fully investigating the damage model AND focusing on the grouping of missiles and will update as soon as we can on how any changes will be managed/implemented.


SERVER DOWNTIME: 4:00 PM PDT - 11 PM UDT
ESTIMATED DOWNTIME: 30 mins

[Dracol]

Thank you and I'll get back to playing shortly.

[Gregory Owen]

Thank you so Much, this is exactly what us number crunchers have been wanting all day

May your Friday be short and warm.

[Cpt Jason McCarthy]

Missiles returned to TT values !!!

Gonna edit my sig !

Edited by Shadowpunisher, 21 March 2013 - 02:54 PM.

[Redshift2k5]

Great post, thanks Paul

[Aaron45]

Lrmers/srmers


whine whine whine


LOVE that PATCH. :*

Edited by Legolaas, 21 March 2013 - 02:54 PM.

[ElLocoMarko]

Woot! Good detail!

[stjobe]

Thank you.

Good explanation, good (temporary) solution.

We'll see how it plays out after it's patched.

[Grayseven]

This should be interesting. Hopefully it will balance out in the end but we'll play a few matches and see how it goes.

[Roadbeer]

Just kidding, I can live with this... for now

[Cybermech]

so my 10 lrm jenner won't function but why???

[LegoPirate]

question: do you guys have a super beta? (a beta for the beta) if not id recommend getting one. you could open it up for volunteers and give out small amounts of MC as incentive to participate if you cant get anyone.

this would prevent stuff like he-man missles from destroying everything.

[New Breed]

LRMs drop from 1.8 damage per missile to 0.7 damage per missile.
SRMs drop from 2.5 damage per missile to 1.5 damage per missile.

Yikes lol

[BR0WN_H0RN3T]

Thanks Paul. I support the proposed way forward.

[Michael Costanza]

Thanks for getting a fix together quickly for this.

[Ranzear]

Figure if an LRM hits perfectly between components, it'll do 0.7*1.4 = 0.98 damage. If an SRM hits right on a border between components, it'll do 1.5*1.4 = 2.1 damage. Almost dead on tabletop values without letting them smash single sections.

This is a very intelligent and commendable fix.

[Shumabot]

Quote

With the advent of smaller/tighter component groupings on the smaller Mechs, an issue arose where too much splash damage was being spread across those Mechs. Basically it turned into a hot mess.

Didn't the commando come out like six months ago, and is the most directly affected by splash? Why is this being addressed more than half a year later?

[stjobe]

Ghost Bear, on 21 March 2013 - 02:56 PM, said:

LRMs drop from 1.8 damage per missile to 0.7 damage per missile.
SRMs drop from 2.5 damage per missile to 1.5 damage per missile.

Yikes lol

With one secondary component hit per missile, that's almost exactly TT values.

[Goose]

Sir, I have to ask: How is it reducing the splash radii would tighten up the missile spread? I would have said they aren't directly related …

Also: So an LRM hits the side torso, say, and the arm armor starts x meters away, far enough that it should take ~20%. So there's no compounding of that damage, as it works it's way out to full radii, or does the computation stop once it hits the new armor location?

Edit: Yeah, x is .9m …

Edited by Goose, 21 March 2013 - 03:00 PM.

[El Death Smurf]

I can effectivly aim any wepon with pinpoint precision EXCEPT missles. I agree with the changes in damage due to missle grouping being way too tight. (who needs to aim when they all hit 1 spot?) but all wepons should maintain near original damage values, as they have, since we aren't rolling dice. Missles however, once properly balanced, should spread damage over the mech, and have higher damage totals. The C-bills earned from damage counter balance the c-bills from salvage, since missles destroy EVERYTHING.