6 replies to this topic

[Phaesphoros]

... and then introduce engine critical hits.

Roundup on critical hits:
Currently, there's a chance (randomness #1) a weapon that hits an unarmored section causes a critical hit. A critical hit does damage to a random (randomness #2) item in the section (e.g. a weapon, ammo, ...) - the more critical slots the item occupies, the more likely it will be chosen of all items in that section to get the dmg if there's a critical hit.
ATM, engines are invulnerable - they take critical hits (according to Static1Shot) but when they have 0 health left, nothing happens.

Note there's a non-random damage to internal structure when you shoot at an unarmored section. When the internal structure is destroyed, the section is lost (-> "component destruction" bonus) and so are all internal items in that section.


Suggestion:

• Every shot should case a critical hit (remove randomness #1), but the critical hit's damage should be adjusted so that average DPS to internal items is not changed.
  
• Keep randomness #2, that is, which item is damaged when you hit the section is random.
  
• By keeping average DPS to internal items the same, you couldn't really(*) tell the difference between the current implementation and my suggestion.
  
• In addition to that, introduce critical hits that damage the engine. When engine health is 0, mech is destroyed.
  
• Raise the engine health to 40 pts (from 15).

(No change for dmg to armor or internal structure.)

(*) There are slight differences, involving the granularity and distribution of critical damage. But I don't think it impacts game play at a noticeable level.



I've suggested this before w/o removing the randomness (just engine crits), but eventually realized "rolling dice" to take down a mech is silly. From a TT perspective, randomness (dice) is the way to go, but you don't need that in MWO.


Effects of suggestion:
As a table.

• The columns "<mech> CT death" refer to how long it takes to destroy the internal structure (unarmored) of the CT using only one instance of a weapon.
  
• "engine death" refers to the suggested engine critical hits with a 15-health-point engine, that is, how long it would take with the suggested non-random engine critical hits to take down the mech - if there was only the engine in CT.
  
• "health 40" refers to an death by engine critical hits with a 40-health-pts engine, as suggested above

Important note: The engine takes up only 6 of 12 critical slots in CT. You could as well multiply both engine death columns by a factor of 2 (taking twice as long to kill), given the gyro (4 critical slots) and some user-placed items take some of the damage.






As you can see, this suggestion only buffs MG and LB 10-X AC, but also gives the devs another option to balance weapons. Also note due to shotgun spread, the LB 10-X AC does only reliably hit one section with all pellets at about 50 m (AWS CT). At 100 m, the pellets spread across both side torso and center torso, reducing damage to engine.

Btw: By removing randomness #1 it's also easier to understand than current random critical hit chances (25 % for one, 14 % for two, .....)

Edited by Phaesphoros, 22 March 2013 - 07:03 PM.

[Static1Shot]

Just because the current system is too complicated for you to understand is not a valid reason for it to be changed.

Engines do currently take critical hits, except nothing happens when they reach 0, other than the fact that they stop absorbing critical hits.

[Phaesphoros]

Static1Shot, on 22 March 2013 - 04:45 PM, said:

Just because the current system is too complicated for you to understand is not a valid reason for it to be changed.

Disproven. I've calculated the estimated critical DPS. I understand how (they say) it works, but there are two chances involved, one being completely useless besides coming from TT.

Static1Shot, on 22 March 2013 - 04:45 PM, said:

Engines do currently take critical hits, except nothing happens when they reach 0, other than the fact that they stop absorbing critical hits.

So what? Just add an "effectively" before every occurence of that phrase in my post. They "effectively" don't take critical hits. (Only difference would be they would protect other items in CT by taking the hits.) That's completely besides the point.

Edited by Phaesphoros, 22 March 2013 - 05:25 PM.

[Static1Shot]

Phaesphoros, on 22 March 2013 - 05:25 PM, said:

I understand how (they say) it works,

Disproven the moment you said this:

Quote

ATM, engines don't take critical hits

You were also wrong on your other point:

Quote

By keeping average DPS to internal items the same, you couldn't really tell the difference between the current implementation and my suggestion.

Currently weapons that deal 10 or more damage in a single shot have a 42% chance to destroy most equipment in a single crit, while weapons that deal less damage tend to spread their damage across multiple equipment before an item is destroyed. Your suggestion removes such differences between weapons and takes away a unique aspect of the current critical system. If crit damage were normalized as you suggested then you could easily tell the difference between the current implementation and your suggestion because you'd no longer be able to 1 shot equipment with certain weapons, and even though every shot would be a critical your damage is still getting spread across all the equipment stored there.

The only thing you seem to be accounting for in your suggestion is critical damage vs engines.

Edited by Static1Shot, 16 May 2013 - 07:47 PM.

[Phaesphoros]

Static1Shot, on 22 March 2013 - 05:38 PM, said:

Disproven the moment you said this:

You claimed I did not understand how it works. You've only proven I missed a detail. Since there's no manual / offical information centre to look things up, I/one might miss a detail. I'm happy to learn those, but please don't claim I just want to change it because it's to complicated for me to understand it (you cannot know that btw).

Static1Shot, on 22 March 2013 - 05:38 PM, said:

You were also wrong on your other point:

Currently weapons that deal 10 or more damage in a single shot have a 25% chance to destroy most equipment in a single crit, while weapons that deal less damage tend to spread their damage across multiple equipment before an item is destroyed. Your suggestion removes such differences between weapons and takes away a unique aspect of the current critical system. If crit damage were normalized as you suggested then you could easily tell the difference between the current implementation and your suggestion because you'd no longer be able to 1 shot equipment with certain weapons, and even though every shot would be a critical your damage is still getting spread across all the equipment stored there.

Edit: As far as I (and mwowiki) understand it, it's a 42 % chance, not 25 %. There's a 25 % chance for a single critical hit PLUS a 14 % chance for 2 critical hits (may hit different items AFAIK) PLUS a 3 % chance for 3 critical hits.
Edit 2(meh): It's not a chance of X % to destroy a single item with a single crit, it's the chance of a crit happening. If the crit happens and hits the item A (and item A has <= 10 health), then it's destroyed, no chance involved (theres chance #2 involved which item is hit). I think you understood that in the same way as me, just wanted to clarify that.

Interesting thought. Let's elaborate this. We need the expectation value of a critical hit. Thats the critical DPS I've listed, times (cooldown+beam duration). There are currently 5 weapons that deal >= than 10 damage per critical hit: LPL (not sure if every pulse is treated individually), PPC, AC/10, AC/20, Gauss (not the LB 10-X AC, as it has 10 pellets), so lets focus on those:
AC/10, LPL, PPC: 6.2 critical dmg estimation value per shot
AC/20: 12.4
Gauss: 9.3
You can easily tweak the Gauss to have 10 critical dmg/shot, so the only difference would be AC/10, LPL, PPC.
But this: "you'd no longer be able to 1 shot equipment with certain weapons" is not true, it's not ability, but pure luck. You shoot x times at a cored section, and eventually the shot crits and the item is gone. Only difference to my suggestion: Theres currently a total chance of 42 % (for non-crit-seekers) of causing a critical hit, so you have a 42 % chance that your first shot destroys an item. This chance is 0 % in my suggestion for the non-crit-seekers.

Static1Shot, on 22 March 2013 - 05:38 PM, said:

The only thing you seem to be accounting for in your suggestion is critical damage vs engines.

This is the aim of the suggestion, yes. But I think it's not reasonable to introduce critical damage on engines with the current randomness #1

Edited by Phaesphoros, 22 March 2013 - 06:32 PM.

[Static1Shot]

Phaesphoros, on 22 March 2013 - 06:09 PM, said:

You claimed I did not understand how it works. You've only proven I missed a detail. Since there's no manual / offical information centre to look things up, I/one might miss a detail. I'm happy to learn those, but please don't claim I just want to change it because it's to complicated for me to understand it (you cannot know that btw).

There's a crit guide and detailed info that's been released from the devs. You've mentioned several incorrect things about how crititical hits work and by continuing to list inaccurate information you only further prove to me how little knowledge you actually have on the topic, which is an important factor since your suggestion is based on that lack of understanding.

Quote

Edit 2(meh): It's not a chance of X % to destroy a single item with a single crit, it's the chance of a crit happening. If the crit happens and hits the item A (and item A has <= 10 health), then it's destroyed, no chance involved (theres chance #2 involved which item is hit). I think you understood that in the same way as me, just wanted to clarify that.

I said that was the case if you were firing a weapon that deals 10 or more damage. The amount of damage isn't randomized, it's based entirely on the weapon that dealt the critical hit and I never claimed otherwise. If you fire a weapon that deals 5 damage then you need 2 crits in order to destroy an item with 10hp. This is important because small damage weapons will spread their crits across multiple pieces of equipment which makes weapons that deal 10+ damage superior for destroying equipment that is sufficiently buffered. The point is moot if the person only has 1 item on that component that can be crit.

Quote

Interesting thought. Let's elaborate this. We need the expectation value of a critical hit. Thats the critical DPS I've listed, times (cooldown+beam duration). There are currently 5 weapons that deal >= than 10 damage per critical hit: LPL (not sure if every pulse is treated individually), PPC, AC/10, AC/20, Gauss (not the LB 10-X AC, as it has 10 pellets),

More proof of your lack of knowledge. Each tick of damage from lasers is a separate damage roll and thus a separate critical roll. Even if you got 10 damage worth of critical hits the equipment they hit is completely random so it's unlikely all 10 of that damage would be delt to the same piece of equipment.

Quote

so lets focus on those:
AC/10, LPL, PPC: 6.2 critical dmg estimation value per shot
AC/20: 12.4
Gauss: 9.3
You can easily tweak the Gauss to have 10 critical dmg/shot, so the only difference would be AC/10, LPL, PPC.
But this: "you'd no longer be able to 1 shot equipment with certain weapons" is not true, it's not ability, but pure luck. You shoot x times at a cored section, and eventually the shot crits and the item is gone. Only difference to my suggestion: Theres currently a total chance of 42 % (for non-crit-seekers) of causing a critical hit, so you have a 42 % chance that your first shot destroys an item. This chance is 0 % in my suggestion for the non-crit-seekers.

That's the flaw with your suggestion, you're changing how efficient all weapons are at destroying equipment. Even an AC/5 has a chance to destroy one piece of equipment in 1 shot if you roll 2 criticals, but the downside is that the chance is reduced if the target equipment is heavily buffered. Because of this you're not just buffing certain weapons as you claim:

Quote

As you can see, this suggestion only buffs MG and LB 10-X AC,

you're nerfing others.

Quote

This is the aim of the suggestion, yes. But I think it's not reasonable to introduce critical damage on engines with the current randomness #1

Quote

(*) There are slight differences, involving the granularity and distribution of critical damage. But I don't think it impacts game play at a noticeable level.

The impact is greater than you realize if you don't think it'd be noticeable. The issue is moot anyways because I see no reason why PGI would listen to this suggestion as it only dilutes the difference between the weapons which is not what players want.

Edited by Static1Shot, 10 May 2013 - 10:08 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Static1Shot, on 22 March 2013 - 05:38 PM, said:

Disproven the moment you said this:



You were also wrong on your other point:


Currently weapons that deal 10 or more damage in a single shot have a 25% chance to destroy most equipment in a single crit, while weapons that deal less damage tend to spread their damage across multiple equipment before an item is destroyed. Your suggestion removes such differences between weapons and takes away a unique aspect of the current critical system. If crit damage were normalized as you suggested then you could easily tell the difference between the current implementation and your suggestion because you'd no longer be able to 1 shot equipment with certain weapons, and even though every shot would be a critical your damage is still getting spread across all the equipment stored there.

The only thing you seem to be accounting for in your suggestion is critical damage vs engines.

This difference between weapons seems to be one of the critical flaws of the current system. As it is, the so called "crit-seekers" make the poorest crit-seekrs by default, because they spread their damage around, meaning it takes a lot longer for them to destroy an item.

I would go even further regarding removing randomness:

1) "Crit-Seeker" weapons simply deal double damage to internal structure.
2) There are no chances to crit. Whenever a mech takes 1 / [number of crit slots] of its damage to internal structure, one item suffers a critical hit.
3) The item that is hit is not determined randomly, but by a system. Each 1 / [Crit Slot] is associated with a different crit slot. The first 1/12th to the first, the 2nd to the last, the 3rd to the second, the 4th to the second to last, and so on.
If a crit slot is empty, nothing happens. If a crit slot is occupied by FF or Endo Steel dynamic structure or actuators, the mech takes 1 [Crit Slot * 2] of the hit location's internal structure to that location.
4) Items don't have regular hit points, but 3 states. Undamaged, damaged, destroyed. If the item has less than 1/3rd of its crit slots remaining, an item is destroyed. If at least 1/3rd of its crit slots were hit, the item is damaged. A damaged item operates at roughly half effectiveness:
- Heat Sinks dissipate half as much heat
- Damaged Ballistic Weapons have their rate of fire halved
- Missile Launchers fire half (rounded up) their normal number of missiles
- Damaged Energy Weapons deal only half damage
- (Optional: Damaged Engines lead to the heat capacity of a mech lowered by 1/3th.)

Non-Gauss Ammo and the Gauss Rifle explode when destroyed, dealing 30 damage max, adjusted by the percentage of ammo remaining in the ammo bin (only for ammo, the Gauss Rifle always inflicts full damage.)
Note, any additional damage taken during suffering a crit can in turn also trigger new crits.

5) If we ever want through-armour criticals - If a hit location armour is reduced to half its starting hit points, a critical hit occurs.
(I really don't want random through-armour crits... That sounds way too unpredictable)