34 replies to this topic

[Lyteros]

PurpleNinja, on 25 March 2013 - 11:49 AM, said:

Yep, completely off topic, it's a troll thing.

About the topic, aside from missiles, which go from useless to definitive weapon and then to useles again every now and then, I think weapons well balanced. At least I don't see the same weapon being used over and over.

But it could my ELO.

The last weeks and days when I was still playing it was LRM, SRM, AC20, Gauss, LL, ML, PPC. Almoust Nothing else, sometimes when someone brought an LBX the person was even mocked for it...

The moment you reach the minmax builds who try to get the most out of it to win and do not care for any fluff or anything else, many weapons just become mathematically provable weaker.
Why use the bad ones when you can clearly recognize the better ones? It's just the same with mechs and specific variants.

The more balanced weapons and mechs are, the more variety we get in the end.
People can play what they like, instead of what they need to have a chance.

Edited by Lyteros, 25 March 2013 - 11:57 AM.

[Tabrias07]

PurpleNinja, on 25 March 2013 - 11:49 AM, said:

Yep, completely off topic, it's a troll thing.

About the topic, aside from missiles, which go from useless to definitive weapon and then to useles again every now and then, I think weapons well balanced. At least I don't see the same weapon being used over and over.

But it could my ELO.

I actually think the current weapon balance is quite good, but the heat system has been broken since the start. I really brought this up because of the thread saying that SHS should just be removed from the game, as they serve no purpose other than a money sink (which is a necessary thing in this type of "economy", so I don't think it's bad from a cost perspective, I think it's bad from a game design/confusing new players perspective.)

However, I feel the heat system could complicate future tech like MASC or medium range missiles (which will most likely NEVER be in this game, so it's probably pointless anyway) and that fixing it now would be good for the future of the game.

flamers

Edited by Tabrias07, 25 March 2013 - 11:58 AM.

[Mackman]

Doesn't work. Weapons are valuable NOT for sheer damage, but the ease of putting all that damage on one spot. Your change would make AC/5's absolutely terrible, and they would AC/2's literally the most worthless thing you could possibly spend tonnage on. Literally all that you're doing is moving all the Autocannon's down a caliber, except (for some reason) the AC/20.

When you want to mess with RoF, you have to consider the impact on actually putting focused damage on a target. When you're forcing a person carrying an AC/5 to hit exactly the same spot FIVE TIMES just to put five measly damage on it, you have made it an absolutely worthless weapon.

[Davers]

Tabrias07, on 25 March 2013 - 11:47 AM, said:

That's why it says in the OP that laser implementation would be up for debate/tuning, as long as a ML does 5 damage and produces 3 heat over 5 seconds, it will be equivalent with the other weapons and the heat system.

It was the players who complained that medium lasers were too good/powerful that made them raise the heat to begin with, and that was long before DHS.

[PurpleNinja]

Lyteros, on 25 March 2013 - 11:55 AM, said:

The last weeks and days when I was still playing it was LRM, SRM, AC20, Gauss, LL, ML, PPC. Almoust Nothing else, sometimes when someone brought an LBX the person was even mocked for it...

Agreed, but it was the same in TT, I don't remember playing with a LBX equipped mech more than a couple of times.

Tabrias07, on 25 March 2013 - 11:56 AM, said:

I actually think the current weapon balance is quite good, but the heat system has been broken since the start. I really brought this up because of the thread saying that SHS should just be removed from the game, as they serve no purpose other than a money sink (which is a necessary thing in this type of "economy", so I don't think it's bad from a cost perspective, I think it's bad from a game design/confusing new players perspective.)

Same thing here, double heat sink always, since TT.
Heat was odd for me at the begining, but now I'm OK with PGI implementation. I can't see a better approach without a lot of rework on weapons balance.

[Lyteros]

PurpleNinja, on 25 March 2013 - 12:07 PM, said:

Agreed, but it was the same in TT, I don't remember playing with a LBX equipped mech more than a couple of times.



Same thing here, double heat sink always, since TT.
Heat was odd for me at the begining, but now I'm OK with PGI implementation. I can't see a better approach without a lot of rework on weapons balance.

LBX in tabletop is like 20 times better then here. It can fire slug shots just like cluster (shotgun) - Ultra is the firerate upgrade while LBX is the upgrade of versatility (getting crits when armor is down).
In MWO it is birdshot right now. And even the Birds laugh about it.
The weapons are quite unbalanced if just a third or so get actually used. Balancing each for itself is tremendous and gets unbalanced the moment new ones will be introduced. Revamping all then will cost more time then aligning them now and taking way less time whenever new weapons come. And there are a lot still to come.

IF you have at least a solid foundation with heat values, it's much easier to balance because you'll have less factors contributing (you switch one out for a constant, that is the same for every weapon).

Edited by Lyteros, 25 March 2013 - 12:13 PM.

[Mercules]

Tabrias07, on 25 March 2013 - 11:37 AM, said:

The rules specify that all weapons fire once per turn, and do a certain amount of damage, and that turn is ten seconds. Whether its a 1 sec beam and 9 secs of cooling off, or a 10 sec beam with heat dissipated as it's fired, doesn't really matter.

Technically they don't say all weapons fire once. They state that in each turn you can fire each weapon once. The distinction is subtle. For example, AC/20 is a weapon "category" You might have one manufacturer that has an AC/20 that fires X shells that are of Y caliber an another that is X+1 Y*.9 or a third that is X/2 Y*2. By game terms however they all fired those shells in a manner that the damage was done to a single section of the mech. The weapon might have fired 10 times, but you only fired that weapon once.

Lasers could be considered to be a continuous beam that did X damage over 10 seconds.

Really, all they had to do is:

Medium Laser does 5 Damage and 3 heat over 10 seconds. Push button beam starts, let up and it stops.
AC/5 fires every 2.5 seconds doing 1.25 damage and generating .25 heat. Multiple TT ammo/ton x4.
AC/20 Fires every 4 second doing 8 damage and generating 2.8 heat. Multiply the TT ammo/ton x2.5

Reduce armor to TT values except for maybe Head.

PurpleNinja, on 25 March 2013 - 12:07 PM, said:

Agreed, but it was the same in TT, I don't remember playing with a LBX equipped mech more than a couple of times.

You had the variable ammo in it, right? Bunch of Slugs and some Flechette? Punch a hole with the 10 damage per shot then scatter shots across it to take advantage of the holes and crit a mech out.

Edited by Mercules, 25 March 2013 - 12:27 PM.

[Tabrias07]

Mercules, on 25 March 2013 - 12:25 PM, said:

Technically they don't say all weapons fire once. They state that in each turn you can fire each weapon once. The distinction is subtle. For example, AC/20 is a weapon "category" You might have one manufacturer that has an AC/20 that fires X shells that are of Y caliber an another that is X+1 Y*.9 or a third that is X/2 Y*2. By game terms however they all fired those shells in a manner that the damage was done to a single section of the mech. The weapon might have fired 10 times, but you only fired that weapon once.

Lasers could be considered to be a continuous beam that did X damage over 10 seconds.

Really, all they had to do is:

Medium Laser does 5 Damage and 3 heat over 10 seconds. Push button beam starts, let up and it stops.
AC/5 fires every 2.5 seconds doing 1.25 damage and generating .25 heat. Multiple TT ammo/ton x4.
AC/20 Fires every 4 second doing 8 damage and generating 2.8 heat. Multiply the TT ammo/ton x2.5

Reduce armor to TT values except for maybe Head.

That would work too, and have basically the same effect. I like your idea for lasers too, as it fixes the issue I had of balancing heat generation with beam duration. I was also imagining pulse lasers being a continuous pulse, similar to flamers or MGs.

Your implementation sounds a lot more fun while having the same effect of keeping DPS/HPS consistent.

Edited by Tabrias07, 25 March 2013 - 12:29 PM.

[Mercules]

Tabrias07, on 25 March 2013 - 12:29 PM, said:

That would work too, and have basically the same effect. I like your idea for lasers too, as it fixes the issue I had of balancing heat generation with beam duration. I was also imagining pulse lasers being a continuous pulse, similar to flamers or MGs.

Your implementation sounds a lot more fun while having the same effect of keeping DPS/HPS consistent.

It also leaves the "lore" behind the weapons a bit more intact in that the AC 20 is a big punch, but unlike the TT being a HUGE punch randomly applied, it is a big punch that is aimed. Instead of random, bad shooting and/or good maneuvering on the opposing pilot's part will spread the damage out instead of needing random Die Rolls to do that. 2 AC/20s to the head would still be significant at normal armor values.

[MustrumRidcully]

PurpleNinja, on 25 March 2013 - 11:34 AM, said:

Do we have a precise and definitive guide on Battletech weapons?

Who's we - if you buy the beginner's box, you get most of the rules to run a 3025 tech campaign, which is basically everything we have now except XL Engines, Endo-Steel, Ferro Fibrous, Ultra-Auto-Cannons, LBX, Double Heat Sinks and Gauss RIfles. There may be some speciality rules missing (like rules for indirect fire spotting.).

The game is still being produced as of today, so there are rulebooks to be bought, if you want to.
I don't think sarna contains all the rules, just excerpts of them. (Not sure if they'd be allowed to do more.)

[MustrumRidcully]

Mackman, on 25 March 2013 - 11:59 AM, said:

Doesn't work. Weapons are valuable NOT for sheer damage, but the ease of putting all that damage on one spot. Your change would make AC/5's absolutely terrible, and they would AC/2's literally the most worthless thing you could possibly spend tonnage on. Literally all that you're doing is moving all the Autocannon's down a caliber, except (for some reason) the AC/20.

When you want to mess with RoF, you have to consider the impact on actually putting focused damage on a target. When you're forcing a person carrying an AC/5 to hit exactly the same spot FIVE TIMES just to put five measly damage on it, you have made it an absolutely worthless weapon.

Yes, it's true that this is something that the table top rules and fiction just overlooks. It is something that would be needed to take into account.


But the interesting to me is - this can almost be done now. We have the new weapon statistics. This can give us a very good impression of how easy or hard weapons are too use. You'd probably need some additional data, but basically, if you compare around players and their weapon performance, you get an idea how "bad" a high rate of fire really is for your weapon's performance.

You might start all weapons variations with the same DPS; then take your metrics, and adjust. If people with a 20/5 second damage cycle AC/20 hit with 80 % accuracy but peole with the 4 / 1 second damage cycle only hit with 60 % accuracy, you know that you need to give the AC/20 [1/5] a damage boost to compensate this difference.

But I doubt any of this is gonna happen. The weapon and heat system balance so far isn't exactly a sign that the required modelling is being done.

[Mackman]

MustrumRidcully, on 25 March 2013 - 01:11 PM, said:

Yes, it's true that this is something that the table top rules and fiction just overlooks. It is something that would be needed to take into account.


But the interesting to me is - this can almost be done now. We have the new weapon statistics. This can give us a very good impression of how easy or hard weapons are too use. You'd probably need some additional data, but basically, if you compare around players and their weapon performance, you get an idea how "bad" a high rate of fire really is for your weapon's performance.

You might start all weapons variations with the same DPS; then take your metrics, and adjust. If people with a 20/5 second damage cycle AC/20 hit with 80 % accuracy but peole with the 4 / 1 second damage cycle only hit with 60 % accuracy, you know that you need to give the AC/20 [1/5] a damage boost to compensate this difference.

But I doubt any of this is gonna happen. The weapon and heat system balance so far isn't exactly a sign that the required modelling is being done.

But why do this anyway? All this amounts to is downgrading each Autocannon to a lower caliber: A "new" AC/20 is just a current AC/10 or AC/5, a "new" AC/5 is just an even worse AC/2, and the "new" AC/2 is an utter and complete waste of tonnage.

EDIT: Also, it's NOT about just hitting your target mech. It's about hitting your target component as well, and anything that makes it harder to put concentrated damage on a particular component is going to seriously degrade the value of the weapon.

Edited by Mackman, 25 March 2013 - 01:32 PM.

[Mercules]

Mackman, on 25 March 2013 - 01:30 PM, said:

But why do this anyway? All this amounts to is downgrading each Autocannon to a lower caliber: A "new" AC/20 is just a current AC/10 or AC/5, a "new" AC/5 is just an even worse AC/2, and the "new" AC/2 is an utter and complete waste of tonnage.

EDIT: Also, it's NOT about just hitting your target mech. It's about hitting your target component as well, and anything that makes it harder to put concentrated damage on a particular component is going to seriously degrade the value of the weapon.

Um.. not to be rude... but... DUH! That is the point.

ALL weapons go down as does armor. Heat goes down by a lot. What does this do? You need to fire a tiny bit more(maybe not since armor is back to normal values not doubled) but instead of the damage being spread by random dice we are delivering it in smaller packets making AIM mean even more. ALL WEAPONS get changed. This would help balance out some issues.

[Mackman]

Mercules, on 25 March 2013 - 02:33 PM, said:

Um.. not to be rude... but... DUH! That is the point.

ALL weapons go down as does armor. Heat goes down by a lot. What does this do? You need to fire a tiny bit more(maybe not since armor is back to normal values not doubled) but instead of the damage being spread by random dice we are delivering it in smaller packets making AIM mean even more. ALL WEAPONS get changed. This would help balance out some issues.

But what issues would it balance out? Heat? Why does Heat need balancing, and why does it need to become less of an issue? I hear just as often on these boards that it needs to become more of an issue, that it needs to be harder to manage. I don't agree with that, but that means that you don't get to just assume 1) that there's a problem in the first place and 2) that your solution would be better.

And, also important, what about the issues that it creates? For instance, right now, it's (relatively) easy to focus damage onto specific components when it comes to assault and (most) heavy mechs. But it's really difficult to do that when it comes to Light mechs and several mediums. A change like you suggest has the potential to make lights and mediums much​ more difficult to kill than they are now, while heavies and assaults would be easier: You don't have to spend time lining up just two or three absolutely perfect shots on the light that's endlessly circle-strafing you: Now you have to line up four or five shots from the biggest gun in the game on a target that 's moving at 100-140 KPH. And God help you if you don't have an AC/20 on hand, and you have to somehow peck away at it with an AC/5 or try to keep a continuous laser beam on target.

This creates issues far beyond the limited issue of "heat vs. RoF", is what I'm saying, and I really don't think your system is prepared to deal with them.

[Mercules]

Mackman, on 25 March 2013 - 02:58 PM, said:

But what issues would it balance out? Heat? Why does Heat need balancing, and why does it need to become less of an issue? I hear just as often on these boards that it needs to become more of an issue, that it needs to be harder to manage. I don't agree with that, but that means that you don't get to just assume 1) that there's a problem in the first place and 2) that your solution would be better.

And, also important, what about the issues that it creates? For instance, right now, it's (relatively) easy to focus damage onto specific components when it comes to assault and (most) heavy mechs. But it's really difficult to do that when it comes to Light mechs and several mediums. A change like you suggest has the potential to make lights and mediums much​ more difficult to kill than they are now, while heavies and assaults would be easier: You don't have to spend time lining up just two or three absolutely perfect shots on the light that's endlessly circle-strafing you: Now you have to line up four or five shots from the biggest gun in the game on a target that 's moving at 100-140 KPH. And God help you if you don't have an AC/20 on hand, and you have to somehow peck away at it with an AC/5 or try to keep a continuous laser beam on target.

This creates issues far beyond the limited issue of "heat vs. RoF", is what I'm saying, and I really don't think your system is prepared to deal with them.

You missed the whole, Armor would go back to normal (AKA Half the value it is now). This means the Raven would be packing, at most, 22 armor on it's CT total. Not 22 Front, but 22 Front+Back. Arm would be 12. Assuming they put 8 in the back the front would have 14.

Now, if you reduced heat production you could put in the other part of heat we are missing currently which would limit heat but not be punitive. Right now it is a shelf.
Heat doesn't bother me.
Heat doesn't bother me.
Heat doesn't bother me.
Heat doesn't bother me.
Heat doesn't bother me.
Oh crap I shut down.

After we can put in the effective of heat.
Slowed down a little bit.
Hud begins to fuzz
Even slower
Hud Fuzzes more
Shutdown, can override/restart
Possible Ammo explosion very low probability
Hud Fuzzes more
Very slow
Shutdown automatic

Now an alpha will spike you to the point where you might be slower and it might be harder to make follow up hits while someone who starts slow but never builds up to the penalty level can pick away and then maybe alpha you when you get close to down then cool down before engaging again.