704 replies to this topic

[NorrinRadd]

Homeless Bill and HRR Insanity are two guys I agree with. Something has to be done before Clan weapons become available, and make this an even larger issue. Given PGI's track record, I am not confident that they will have a good solution, and less confident that a substandard solution will be fixed quickly.

[scJazz]

Homeless Bill, on 11 June 2013 - 11:56 PM, said:

I'm not going to change my post just for you, but you may be pleased to know that this is really just a test bed for the article this will eventually become. I needed to see what I needed to change an adapt, what people were confused about, and what alternatives came out.

I promise you're not endorsing something terrible.

Basically my solution boils down to this: if you fire too many weapons at once or in rapid succession, you lose convergence. It limits you to either high, immediate damage or about 20 damage per second with pinpoint accuracy. I dislike removing group fire entirely for several reasons, and I think this would solve the problem without needing to go that far.

It hurt me not to bunderline parts of this response.

Bill, honestly I'm not asking you to un-bunderline your post. The problem is I am a very fast reader with very good recall of anything I've read. The bunderlines are making my eyes jump around the entire paragraph text as they attempt Left>Right>Down scan making the whole paragraph turn into a jumbled nightmare in my head. I'm not saying I'm ProSmartReader. I'm just pointing out that there are ways of accomplishing your goal using a highly nuanced communication device known as English (this is intended to be a joke with a level of sarcasm)

At some point I'm going to de-spoil the whole OP and copy/paste it into EditPad so I can read it in its entirety. Still, I have picked up on what your approach is as mentioned by reading the comments around it.

Again I totally endorse Bill's plan!

[StonedVet]

I read through the whole thing and agree with the targeting computer idea. Well thought out and well worded. To those who cant take 5 minutes and read, I hear hooked on Phoenics works, try it. Have a little respect and read this man's well written thread full of ideas both good and not so good. Only ones not reading through and posting flame remarks are those happy to deal 60 dmg+ in one click of a button.

[Roland]

Lowridah, on 12 June 2013 - 06:33 AM, said:

I hear hooked on Phoenics works, try it.

Delicious irony.

[Zyllos]

Not sure if anyone noticed but this system would allow Pulse Lasers to have their +1 ToHit component to be introduced into a gameplay system in some way.

Take the Medium Laser's TCS value of 12.5. The Medium Pulse Laser's TCS value could be 8 or something lower.

And, honestly, instead of just losing convergence, I would just make the system introduce a Cone-of-Fire that blooms as the value increases beyond the initial value (100 in Homeless Bill's case).

So, now the Medium Pulse Laser is not only more accurate by having less beam duration, it also can be fired more often without introducing inaccurate fire.

Edited by Zyllos, 12 June 2013 - 06:37 AM.

[scJazz]

Lowridah, on 12 June 2013 - 06:33 AM, said:

I hear hooked on Phoenics works, try it.

Roland, on 12 June 2013 - 06:34 AM, said:

Delicious irony.

srsly and dang it you beat me to it!

Also... I don't care if his post is long. I like long posts. I just don't want to get eyestrain dealing with BUNDERLINE

[HRR Insanity]

Homeless Bill, on 11 June 2013 - 11:56 PM, said:

I'm not a fan of removing group fire, but it seems to be the only other alternative that would actually fix things. Again, that deserves a thought-out and well-organize rebuttal, and you will get one soon enough.

Re-read my post. I didn't remove group fire. I penalized it exactly the same way you propose to, but without all the complicated math. The only difference between your wall-of-text and my post are that I explicitly forced individually fired weapons to be ALWAYS ACCURATE. This is because I'm a big fan of skill. I always wanted the option to fire a perfectly accurate single shot so long as you've waited for any impact from previous group shots to dissipate.

My group fire solution also uses a cone of fire that is affected by # of weapons, heat, and movement. It is also pre-calculated at the time of firing. It also avoids macros by using a temporal detection so you can't rapidly chain individual (perfectly accurate) weapons into a pin-point strike by trying to 'sneak around' the system. The main difference between our two posts is that in my proposal, regardless of movement or heat, individual weapons fired sufficiently apart will always be perfectly accurate.

From my post: "Because single weapons fired sufficiently apart (subject to balance, probably 0.5-1 second gap to prevent macroing) are NOT subject to weapon spread (read the above carefully), this idea does NOT make the game into a random number generator. If you fire one weapon at a time, you are still pin-point accurate. Good gunnery still matters, the proposed solution just allows you to use big weapons to maximum effect. If you fire groups, then you suffer the consequences (as intended by the fix)."

I left the individual details up to actual playtesting, because I don't think it's possible to TheoryWarrior this without seeing how it gets implemented.

But group fire is definitely not out.

PS: Your post is well timed. I was planning a complete article/re-post of my original 'Dooooomed' post that was going to go up on June 17th (one year anniversary of my first post on this topic during Closed Beta). Hopefully we can determine if the two ideas are different or if we can come up with a combined proposal and get it out there for the Devs to use. They need someone helping them... and I already have a full-time job.

Edited by HRR Insanity, 12 June 2013 - 10:13 AM.

[Petroshka]

lots of good feedback here. although i am still worried that TCL would just become another "heat management" issue. When i think of the problem i think we are trying to solve, it is the capability of a mech placing a pinpoint salvo of 40-60+ damage at 0-1000 meters.

Can TCL solve that? I suspect as stated, no. If a mech starts at TCL = 0, then fires it's massive load, TCL jumps but he gets pinpoint because he started at 0. He then hides behind his ridge until TCL is giving him pinpoint again, reds out another CT. Repeat. THAT is the gameplay we don't want to see, and honestly, how do you fix that?

[Homeless Bill]

HRR Insanity, on 12 June 2013 - 10:07 AM, said:

But group fire is definitely not out.

I'll rephrase: I think you penalize group fire too harshly. I'm definitely against movement penalties and the like. Again, because your solution is what I consider to be the only one that would fix our problems, it deserves a real rebuttal, and you'll get it. But E3 > Forum Warrioring, so you might have to wait a bit =D

[HRR Insanity]

Homeless Bill, on 12 June 2013 - 10:15 AM, said:

I'll rephrase: I think you penalize group fire too harshly. I'm definitely against movement penalties and the like. Again, because your solution is what I consider to be the only one that would fix our problems, it deserves a real rebuttal, and you'll get it. But E3 > Forum Warrioring, so you might have to wait a bit =D

The advantage of including movement/heat penalties is that each of those factors can be independently tested/balanced. The Devs have already identified jump-sniping as 'too strong' due to the advantages that it provides (minimal exposure, maximal firepower, etc). Having the ability to add heat/movement penalties to the Cone of Fire allows those parameters to be included in a single balancing system.

For instance, right now, there is NO reason not to use energy weapons and the heat scale does nothing to penalize them until you get to the top of the scale. There is a reason that energy weapons are lighter than ballistics... it's because they're supposed to be partially balanced by heat and the need for heat sinks. BattleTech is supposed to be a constant struggle with heat... and heat based cone of fire adjustments make that more like the IP it's based on.

However, my system would not apply heat/movement penalties for individually fired weapons (ie: they're perfectly accurate)... which is largely where the balance comes from.

I have no problem starting with # of weapons as the only parameter, but having the ability to extend the system into heat/movement will make it much more flexible and prevent the Devs from adding more idiotic extra systems to balance those issues.

[Demuder]

Petroshka, on 12 June 2013 - 10:15 AM, said:

lots of good feedback here. although i am still worried that TCL would just become another "heat management" issue. When i think of the problem i think we are trying to solve, it is the capability of a mech placing a pinpoint salvo of 40-60+ damage at 0-1000 meters.

Can TCL solve that? I suspect as stated, no. If a mech starts at TCL = 0, then fires it's massive load, TCL jumps but he gets pinpoint because he started at 0. He then hides behind his ridge until TCL is giving him pinpoint again, reds out another CT. Repeat. THAT is the gameplay we don't want to see, and honestly, how do you fix that?

Read again, TCL penalty is applied before the shot is fired.

[M e g a M a n X]

Your proposal is so alien for me especially since I'm also a previous Mechwarrior player and I've never seen
anything close to the system you presented.

But it's good. I really can't disagree with it lol.

But this will be a major overhaul for the game, so I'm quite skeptical about seeing it in the future.

Edited by M e g a M a n X, 12 June 2013 - 11:27 AM.

[Lee Ving]

"The crux of a lot of the major balance problems is that being able to deal more than 20 or 30 points of damage to a single location in a single click - particularly at range - is bad."

lolnope.

The problem is that armor values are doubled, the weapon damages are not, fire rates are 3x.

Gauss should be dealing MORE damage to the component section it hits, not less (this can be same of all weapons because of the armor increase).

[Monkeystador]

Thank you for your good post. Its easy to read and can be read quickly. Points well made.
Especially the point about disconnecting the problem from the heat scale. Thats an important point.

I thought about this myself and i think a general solution either yours or PGIs is not good. Both try to be smart about the issue but in the end it lacks precision.

[Tombstoner]

Lee Ving, on 12 June 2013 - 10:57 AM, said:

"The crux of a lot of the major balance problems is that being able to deal more than 20 or 30 points of damage to a single location in a single click - particularly at range - is bad."

lolnope.

The problem is that armor values are doubled, the weapon damages are not, fire rates are 3x.

Gauss should be dealing MORE damage to the component section it hits, not less (this can be same of all weapons because of the armor increase).

lol, YEP

The problem is too much damage in a single click to one location. This resulted in the doubling of the armor to artificially inflate survival time... I remember when this was done way way before the arrival of DHS inclosed beta in fact. with DHS and new mechs with higher alphas this problem has gotten worse and will continue getting worse once we go 12 vs.12 then add in clan tech.

Damage values need to be balanced between weapons as part of the trade off between heat generation, range, damage, crit size, hp, tonnage, ammo and others. The ac-20 took a massive nerf when armor was doubled..... i prefer to take 4 med lasers if i could: in TT. pin point damage is a nerf to large damage weapons from TT. the ac-20 should be doing 30 points of damage to compensate, but when you make an ac-60 its exploiting the lack of damage distribution so you cant balance the ac-20 correctly or any weapon for that mater.

[Demuder]

M e g a M a n X, on 12 June 2013 - 10:46 AM, said:

Your proposal is so alien for me especially since I'm also a previous Mechwarrior player and I've never seen anything close to the system you presented.

Quite the opposite, it seems to be a very good adaptation of the 2d6 hit location system to a real time and aiming environment.

[Arctu]

This is a great idea. PGI please listen :-)

[cyberFluke]

I admire and respect the work that has gone into this proposal, that I want clear. However, I struggle to see the overall difference in outcome to a bloom CoF affected by heat, movement, impact etc. You're proposing to add a completely new layer of numbers to an already complicated quagmire that essentially does the same thing as heat (with a lot more effort involved than changing capacity/dissipation). All this effort, just to maintain this absolutely ridiculous idea that pinpoint accuracy = skill?

[Tincan Nightmare]

cyberFluke, on 12 June 2013 - 09:47 PM, said:

I admire and respect the work that has gone into this proposal, that I want clear. However, I struggle to see the overall difference in outcome to a bloom CoF affected by heat, movement, impact etc. You're proposing to add a completely new layer of numbers to an already complicated quagmire that essentially does the same thing as heat (with a lot more effort involved than changing capacity/dissipation). All this effort, just to maintain this absolutely ridiculous idea that pinpoint accuracy = skill?

No the problem he is addressing is mechs unloading all of their direct fire weaponry into a single location with a massive alpha strike, when those mechs (and their armor and internal structure layout) was designed for a random hit location environment. In TT an AC20 is truly fearsome for the simple reason that it does 20 points to a single location. 4 med. lasers do the same amount of damage for 4 tons, but you will almost never land them together in a single round (beyond amazing luck). Also, heat penalties will not effect ballistic weapons and energy weapons equally, especially the gauss rifle since it produces almost no heat. It would just make dual gauss builds the new FOTM.

At OP, I think you proposal is well thought out and I would love to try it (since this game is in beta and we are supposed to be trying things before it is released) but I also lack faith that the devs will jump on this. Which is just a damn shame.

[Homeless Bill]

Zyllos, on 12 June 2013 - 06:35 AM, said:

And, honestly, instead of just losing convergence, I would just make the system introduce a Cone-of-Fire that blooms as the value increases beyond the initial value (100 in Homeless Bill's case).

My system does both. Convergence loss is necessary to make this penalty work at close range; otherwise, it will have no effect on (U)AC/40-style cheese. Cone of fire is simply not effective at spreading damage around at short range. As it's set up, between 100 and 200 on the TCL scale, the cone of fire also increases.

M e g a M a n X, on 12 June 2013 - 10:46 AM, said:

Your proposal is so alien for me especially since I'm also a previous Mechwarrior player and I've never seen
anything close to the system you presented.

But it's good. I really can't disagree with it lol.

But this will be a major overhaul for the game, so I'm quite skeptical about seeing it in the future.

Honestly, I feel like this or something like it has been the missing balance component to past MechWarrior titles. There's always been a need to address this awkward part of the conversion, but it's never been done.

In effect, where the heat scale limits damage over time (over a span of 10 seconds to a minute), this scale would be there to limit pinpoint damage over very short periods (second-to-second).

As much as it's a new system with some complications, it really won't be confusing at all for players. There's another scale, it's based on the amount of stuff you fire simultaneously (or over a very short period of time), and pushing it too hard makes you lose convergence/accuracy.

The reason I particularly like my strategy is that it will only require players to change one thing: fire discipline. Whereas movement/heat penalties, highly-penalized group fire, and the wait-for-convergence strategy will all fundamentally alter combat and force players to make large changes to how they play, my solution will allow this entire balance problem to be de-coupled from every other system in the game.

Lee Ving, on 12 June 2013 - 10:57 AM, said:

lolnope.

The problem is that armor values are doubled, the weapon damages are not, fire rates are 3x.

Gauss should be dealing MORE damage to the component section it hits, not less (this can be same of all weapons because of the armor increase).

I refuse to play a game where I have to wait 10 seconds for every weapon to reload. Armor doubling was a good call since they bumped up the fire rates.

If you really don't think that high amounts of pinpoint damage is a problem, I have no idea what game you're playing, and I'm not going to bother trying to convince you.

Monkeystador, on 12 June 2013 - 11:33 AM, said:

in the end it lacks precision.

Could you perhaps explain why? To me, the precision is the biggest benefit of my system. It affects nothing else, de-couples this problem from all the other systems, and gives the developers an independent set of numbers to play with. And again, this should be extremely intuitive for players. Unlike heat, where you've got to watch it throughout an engagement, the TCL just wants you to set up your weapon groups correctly and not spam like a madman.

Also, your name is awesome.

cyberFluke, on 12 June 2013 - 09:47 PM, said:

I admire and respect the work that has gone into this proposal, that I want clear. However, I struggle to see the overall difference in outcome to a bloom CoF affected by heat, movement, impact etc. You're proposing to add a completely new layer of numbers to an already complicated quagmire that essentially does the same thing as heat (with a lot more effort involved than changing capacity/dissipation). All this effort, just to maintain this absolutely ridiculous idea that pinpoint accuracy = skill?

Again, real rebuttal coming. In brief, that solution is really not much less complicated, and it will have a much larger and far-reaching impact on players. Accuracy penalties for heat will fundamentally alter a lot of combat, and I'm not sure how it will pan out; it could be good and it could be bad - but why risk it when you don't have to? Movement penalties will straight-up encourage camping, and I'm 100% against it.

Cone of fire alone can't work because it either doesn't have enough of an effect at close range or too much of an effect at long range. If it doesn't solve an AC/40 build, it doesn't solve anything. Convergence loss is necessary to make sure close-range combat is also balanced.

An additional set of numbers is better because it separates this very specific problem from the rest of the game's balance. The developers get a nice set of numbers to play with that shouldn't have any unintended consequences, and the players get an intuitive system that they can easily adjust to.

Edited by Homeless Bill, 13 June 2013 - 09:09 AM.