102 replies to this topic

[Felix Reynolds]

This has been an issue that a thread has been made for for more than a month- last iteration was here, before that was here, and still no official response in any of these threads.

To all who were wanting 'combat' footage and not 'testing ground' footage, there is this video -



Essentially, what has been hashed out over and over again is that the major issue at the moment seems to be that the 'direct impact' damage of SSRMs is being applied far too often to the Center Torso- the nutshell version of the math states that currently (as of the missile hotfix) any missile does AT MOST 40% of its damage in splash to any component that is right next to the impact point (the language was worded to make it seem as if this only happens once in a blue moon) which means that you need three instances of perfect splash over damage to do the same as a single direct missile hit.

Combine those numbers with the fact that usually the CT is 30-40% more armored than the rest of the mech, and there is absolutely no way that the current damage application should be happening- there are numerous examples, screencaps and vids, of the paperdoll of a destroyed mech showing only lightly yellow side torsos while being completely cored out in the CT.

Combine this with the fact that the last ATD answer regarding this only re-iterated that this 'isn't happening', and I am seriously worried about whether or not this will in fact be fixed with the upcoming missile tweaks, or if it will just be made worse again a la the last missile hell death period.

Edited by Felix Reynolds, 11 May 2013 - 09:06 PM.

[Treckin]

Video demonstrates 2 things:

Splash damage apparently working as intended.

The developers abandoned this game before I did.

[Deathlike]

With this info, I'm pretty sure we're on track for StreakWarrior Online.

I don't think I've ever seen streaks still effectively warped in both in game and in the dev's minds.

Edited by Deathlike, 11 May 2013 - 10:55 PM.

[redlance]

Felix Reynolds, on 11 May 2013 - 09:01 PM, said:

This has been an issue that a thread has been made for for more than a month- last iteration was here, before that was here, and still no official response in any of these threads.

To all who were wanting 'combat' footage and not 'testing ground' footage, there is this video -



Essentially, what has been hashed out over and over again is that the major issue at the moment seems to be that the 'direct impact' damage of SSRMs is being applied far too often to the Center Torso- the nutshell version of the math states that currently (as of the missile hotfix) any missile does AT MOST 40% of its damage in splash to any component that is right next to the impact point (the language was worded to make it seem as if this only happens once in a blue moon) which means that you need three instances of perfect splash over damage to do the same as a single direct missile hit.

Combine those numbers with the fact that usually the CT is 30-40% more armored than the rest of the mech, and there is absolutely no way that the current damage application should be happening- there are numerous examples, screencaps and vids, of the paperdoll of a destroyed mech showing only lightly yellow side torsos while being completely cored out in the CT.

Combine this with the fact that the last ATD answer regarding this only re-iterated that this 'isn't happening', and I am seriously worried about whether or not this will in fact be fixed with the upcoming missile tweaks, or if it will just be made worse again a la the last missile hell death period.

THANKS MAN, good find. great footage mate!

Treckin, on 11 May 2013 - 10:41 PM, said:

Video demonstrates 2 things:

Splash damage apparently working as intended.

The developers abandoned this game before I did.

how depressing.

[Felix Reynolds]

redlance, on 12 May 2013 - 12:55 AM, said:

THANKS MAN, good find. great footage mate!

No worries- I tried to get this brought up during the three weeks the previous patch was live, and every response I got to every ticket was the same- 'the bug isn't present, training grounds isn't indicative of live play, missiles are still to be fixed *soon*'. So when the new patch went live, I didn't post anything for fear I had gotten a bit too crazy about it. Is good to know other people are also seeing the same thing and are just as pissed about it.

Feel free to add in the vid or links in the OP if you want, hopefully the more attention we bring to it the more we might actually be given a straight answer, even one as simple as 'it's something we don't want to discuss/consider until after all missile fixes have been patched in'.

[Villz]

redlance, on 11 May 2013 - 01:47 AM, said:

The word on the street is that streaks are working as intended, i have done a little testing on my own and concluded that in my own personal and humble opinion that its just not the case. please watch the video and please share your own experience with the streak short range missile system in the game. i need your help in bringing this to PGI's attention, someday soon there will be SSRM 6's.



thank you for taking the time mechwarriors, now go answer your skype messages. lol. -redlance.

Every single thing you said in this post was 100% spot on, A well thought out articulate response. I really liked your part at the end in regard to creating a connection between the balance team and the top rated units. The amount of garbage i read on these forums by people who don't even understand how the game works is completely disheartening and if i was myself a PGI staff member i would have stopped reading these forums a year ago. No offense to PGI at all but what redlance says in the video about in house QA being non existant is 100% true. The length of time it takes PGI to make any changes whatsoever is insane. The impression i have received from the outside looking in is that all of PGI's "Balance" changes are knee jerk reactions only when community outcry levels reach a certain threshold. In a beta game i don't undertand why balance changes don't occur every patch small ones from week to week as problems arise. The community has many intelligent members whom could weigh in on realistic balance impressions. Hopefully they listen for the betterment of all involved. If PGI could take head and engage their dedicated community correctly there is much helpful feedback out here waiting for them to the betterment of their product and to the user experience. Even on a purely capitalistic ideal its insanity to not make their product superior and perhaps keep more of the new players make a larger more profitable base for their current and ongoing work....

.
..
...
....
.....
EDIT: Please everyone Like the Origional Post So Perhaps We Can Get Some PGI Eyes On This...
.....
....
...
..
.

Edited by Villz, 12 May 2013 - 02:13 AM.

[Chavette]

They are a small company, its not very hard to get ahold of them. You can try posting this in patch feedback, PM-ing the weapons guy thomas(better) or if he doesn't reply sending a ticket linked to this to support.

Edited by Chavette, 12 May 2013 - 03:26 AM.

[redlance]

here is the same effect with live weapon values.

http://www.youtube.c...d&v=JK77SA7BodI

[Nik Reaper]

redlance, on 12 May 2013 - 03:41 PM, said:

here is the same effect with live weapon values.

http://www.youtube.c...d&v=JK77SA7BodI

Great video example , and there are such simple tweaks that can be done to aid ssrms. just make them lock elbows and knees instead of hips joints and shoulders and/or make AMS shoot about 50% of them even at short range... and a much lesser turning radius for there tracking.

[Acid Phase]

Well...my idea would be to tweet the devs till they actually address this issue. I just sent my first. God knows if they actually see half of the important sh*t in these forums. They have more activity in their twitter accounts.

[Nation Uprise]

Acid Phase, on 13 May 2013 - 07:40 AM, said:

Well...my idea would be to tweet the devs till they actually address this issue. I just sent my first. God knows if they actually see half of the important sh*t in these forums. They have more activity in their twitter accounts.

That's the impression I've gotten from PGI, in order for them to pay attention to you, you have to either tweet them or post something on Reddit. But even then, expect them to ignore you if you've got actual proof that something isn't "working as intended." They usually acknowledge you only if you talk about how cool the Hero mechs are or anything that requires paying money.

[Felicitatem Parco]

I did an experiment like this in the Testing grounds to compare Streaks to normal SRMs, and Streaks cause LESS Damage Spread than SRMs that all hit squarely in the middle of the CT.

http://mwomercs.com/...the-same-atlas/

[Mister Blastman]

Nice video. Well done, OP.

[Skyfaller]

redlance, on 11 May 2013 - 03:01 AM, said:

regardless, it is the fact that streaks always damage the CT and leave the rest of the mech intact that is at the core of this weapon balancing problem.

No, that is because of splash damage. Most missiles will hit the torso area..CT,LT,RT. The splash from the SSRM touches the surrounding areas.

So, if an SSRM 6-launcher volley hits a mech in the chest the CT takes direct hits and then one third of the splash from the CT goes to LT the other third goes to RT and the last third goes to the head section. On the other hand, the missiles hitting the RT and LT directly all transfer half of their splash to the CT and the other half to the arms. Result? CT is taking 2.0 damage (1 from direct hit, .33 from LT .33 from RT .33 from head) while LT and RT take 1.3 damage (1 from direct hit, .33 from CT)

This gives the illusion of the CT always receiving the bulk of the missiles when it does not.

LRMs before their splash radius nerf would almost always blow the RT or LT sections off before the CT. The reason for this was the volley had so many more missiles and they hit in a wider area that they hit the arms too. This resulted in RT/LT taking 1 damage from direct hits, .33 from CT and .5 from the arms. 1.8 damage. RT and LT tend to have 25% less armor than the CT so when they used to take LRM hits the RT and LT were receiving more damage than the CT was and thus popped off first.

With the LRM splash nerf and damage reduction they don't do that anymore. SSRM splash radius remains the same: too much. If you notice in the video of mario brothers music, the SSRMs did hit all over the mech's chest but the CT kept taking the bulk of the damage. Splash damage in action. Notice the video when it fought the Highlander..and it shot the SSRMs from above it (jet up at close range).. in those shots the SSRMs hit only the head, CT and LT/RT not the arms. That is why the streakcat's old bunny hop tactic is so effective...it prevents damage to itself, it puts all damage into the sections that transfer splash damage to the CT and has a high chance of popping the cockpit.

[Felix Reynolds]

Skyfaller, on 13 May 2013 - 08:19 AM, said:

This gives the illusion of the CT always receiving the bulk of the missiles when it does not.

This is precisely the issue that is NOT the case though, despite the devs claiming repeatedly that it is.

Firstly, Prosperity's example is excellent, and even though some will say it's 'just Testing Grounds', that is identical to what happens in 'live' tests.

Second, using your own numbers as an example, the torsos are taking 1.33 damage for every 2.00 damage the CT takes. If that were the case, for a stock Atlas to have it's CT armor (94) stripped, the RT and LT should still take upwards of 60 damage- and they only carry 64 armor. Which is NOT what is happening. RT and LT are being left with barely scratched bright yellow armor values, while the CT is being utterly trashed.

Lastly, according to Paul, 'perfect' splash damage values should rarely if ever happen, due to the decreased radius size- to quote his post on the missile hotfix

Paul Inouye, on 21 March 2013 - 02:46 PM, said:

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).

Emphasis mine, but the way that is worded strongly suggests that the system that is currently in place was designed to function in a way that stopped the crazy splash damage multiplication that we saw during the LRM-apocalypse. Which means that either this is incorrect and splash is still an issue but somehow only really affecting CT's (due to joint-location missile locking) or the damage being applied is somehow being directly sent through to the CT, despite 'visually' seeing the missiles impact elsewhere.

In other news, HAPPY DANCE TIME for getting Prosperity in on this. He's like, my favorite.

[Deathlike]

IIRC, part of the issue has to do with the mesh or something about the splash sphere radius. I forget the exact term. Basically, many mech modules since the original few mechs have added a bit more complexity to the damage models. Streaks simply abuse the current models like nothing.

I believe that part of the missile fix will come with "changing some of the damage models" in addition to the LRM/SRM fix, which will also indirectly affect Streaks. However, my faith in PGI to make sure things are "working as intended" are more than unlikely to happen.

[Joker Two]

Keeping this bumped, and I have an armor schematic as well. Cropped to avoid revealing other players' names.



That was one RVN-3L with 3x MLAS, 2x SSRM-2, and ECM. Noone else from his team was within a kilometer (the fight was atop a low ridge on Alpine Peaks. I mount minimal arm armor (no arm weapons), and was successfully torso-twisting to spread his laser damage around while he circle-strafed. Based on the damage color on the side torsos, his laser damage probably put me to dark yellow armor, the SSRMs did the rest.


EDIT: Keep getting error "post too short" when trying to add image.

Edited by Joker Two, 14 May 2013 - 04:02 PM.

[l33tworks]

Can you guys go to your weapons stats and tell me the hit % of the ssrm2s?

Mine is only 74% and I have done zero testing with them and the stats are all in game trying my BEST to hit with them all the time.
STREAK SRM 2 57 4,153 3,113 74.96% 04:20:57 6,316

They miss entirely 1/4 of the time for me and thats a heck of a lot for something thats described as "guaranteed to hit"
Most of these are bevause they hit but do zero damage anywhere, let alone hit the CT too much. To me they are broken that they miss too much

[Joker Two]

l33tworks, on 14 May 2013 - 10:48 PM, said:

Can you guys go to your weapons stats and tell me the hit % of the ssrm2s?

Mine is only 74% and I have done zero testing with them and the stats are all in game trying my BEST to hit with them all the time.
STREAK SRM 2 57 4,153 3,113 74.96% 04:20:57 6,316

They miss entirely 1/4 of the time for me and thats a heck of a lot for something thats described as "guaranteed to hit"
Most of these are bevause they hit but do zero damage anywhere, let alone hit the CT too much. To me they are broken that they miss too much

My stats say they are hitting at 65%, but I don't really trust that. I cannot remember any time I ever saw any SSRM miss except when it struck intervening terrain, which is uncommon. Perhaps previously bugged hitboxes are turning visual hits into statistical misses. Also, I haven't used them recently (since I realized they were broken powerful).

I have fought against them in fast and slow lights and mediums enough to be able to tell there is something wrong, regardless of what the numbers or the devs say. I wish I could post armor schematics, those would give a better idea, but when I tried last night it gave me an error.

EDIT: Does anyone know for sure (aka, have in-game experience with) whether AMS can successfully engage SSRMs? That may account for a large portion of the misses on a supposedly "auto-hit" weapon.

Edited by Joker Two, 15 May 2013 - 08:17 AM.

[Strum Wealh]

Joker Two, on 15 May 2013 - 08:14 AM, said:

EDIT: Does anyone know for sure (aka, have in-game experience with) whether AMS can successfully engage SSRMs? That may account for a large portion of the misses on a supposedly "auto-hit" weapon.

Actually, it has been clarified by one of the Devs that AMS already do affect Streak SRMs.

Thomas Dziegielewski, on 30 January 2013 - 11:14 AM, said:

Standing still, At 180m a single AMS will shoot down 1.8 SSRM missiles.
Running away from source will probably intercept both at that range.

Anything less than 100m will be hard pressed to intercept any SSRM.

AMS range is 200m.

AMS 2 damage / sec
SSRM 1 hitpoints
SSRM SPEED 200m/sec

The same Dev further stated that Narc missiles have 2 hitpoints, versus the single hitpoint of LRMs and Streak SRMs (and, presumably, standard SRMs).

Granted, the post is now somewhat dated and some of the values might have changed, but the gist is there.