Tenths of second counts even in such slow-paced game as MWO. For example: 0.5 seconds is a difference between hitting enemy and hitting (often invisible) terrain hitboxes. If you think it doesn't matter - you don't have a clue about how to play first person shooters in general and MWO in particular.
Even more than that, I say laser balance hinges right down to the milisecond for discharge times. A 0.4 laser could be massively overpowered, but a 0.5 laser could be near OP. It's really much quicker than people would think.
How about reducing beam duration on pulse lasers instead of changing the heat/damage ?
That would make them easier to hit with. This is actually consistent with the Battletech lore, and would differentiate them from normal lasers.
Yes, KISS is the way to go. Can't imagine someone would get to know very specific heat properties for every single mech in the game.
Why people whine about dual AC/20 or 4xPPC+ and such? To build those you need to sacrifice on armor or a few HS and often run slow because of a below average engine so I think this compensate enough. That's the basic, no? Why many of us spend hours on Smurfy trying to build something that would work in a effective way? You add fire power but sacrifice on other parts... or, you get the fastest engine, max armor and use cheap weapons.
The 150% thing does not work... instead let me explain how I would like to see it. When you touch 95% heat I'd like the girl to say Initiating shutdown, then you have 2 seconds to press O to cancel this and let you cool down manually or if in action one could decide to fire one more time and risk to go over 100% and take damage over time. How's that sound?
Doesnt sound too bad, all in all.
Now grant your dedicated masses of Beta destroyers....errrm I meant Beta testers a chance to test those changes until your serves start sweating.
Give unto us unbroken changes, we will break ´em, promised^^
I don't get the LPL nerf, a lot of players seem to find them undesirable as is, increasing the heat to over that of a ppc will drive even more builds away from them. I use them on STK-3F build (4xLPL 2xML) and it works great for me, yes they are very much a niche weapon but still in a good place right now imo. You can keep the extra .5 dmg over .75 sec buff, these things will now be categorically worse in almost every way than a std ppc with this change. Pinpoint dmg? PPC Longer Range? PPC Less heat? PPC The only thing making LPL somewhat better in comparison will be lack of min range, most times a non-issue anyways. I've never heard ppl calling LPL OP yet PPCs have whine threads all over the forums and they aren't getting touched except with these new confusing arcane anti-boating restrictions that will now be applied heavy-handedly to all types of builds that were never really a problem to begin with (4p anyone)? Seems kinda backward to me.
Also like ppl have said if you want to see more varied games, introduce tonnage limits in MM. I'm no BT expert, never touched TT, never read the books, only played MW2-4 and mechcommander, but I always thought drops based on tonnage was kinda hardwired into battletech rules. I was surprised when I first started playing open beta that tonnage was a non-factor in matchmaking but always kinda assumed it would be added in later.
Either way guess we'll see how it turns out but at first glance this new system all just seems a bit arbitrary without really addressing the spirit of the perceived problem.
Tenths of second counts even in such slow-paced game as MWO. For example: 0.5 seconds is a difference between hitting enemy and hitting (often invisible) terrain hitboxes. If you think it doesn't matter - you don't have a clue about how to play first person shooters in general and MWO in particular.
Game isnt about how to take out a mech in a single volley... theres a "twitch" element to the game but it isnt a "twitch" game.
and its not spreadsheet warrior online which some would have us play.
matches arent meant to be over as quickly as possible, its a mech simulation game.
this isnt the call of duty mechwarrior edition game you are looking for.
further increasing the heat of LPLs? doesnt' sound good to me...the damage-plus doesn't justify that much heat for a weapon that already has huge drawbacks compared to a LLAS...i'm just using it for the wub-wub-wub sound
the DPS/HPS values would be okay in my opinion if the Pulse Lasers are to be "redone" to some "machine gun" like lasers...so hire shot frequency of "laser bullets", in comparison to a steady beam of a standard laser
would be nice if
Quote
"This is in preparation of them being tuned as we move toward launch."
could be clarified more - will the pulse laser mechanic be changed? or is it only about tweaking numbers?
Stop making the game so complicated and breaking other parts of the game.
KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid!
your K.I.S.S is flawed this isnt COD
its a simulation[a thinking mans shooter]
you should try to learn
what you play before you actually
can be a good Player or atleast learn by playing
but most ppl in this CONSOLE generation
just need the PC to play actually for them
instead of them playing the game on PC
as a Quakegeneration player
this video makes my standpoint very clear
of what we dont want that a game becomes
ps the changes they intend to do as wip is to stop alpha warrior online
hope soon they change assaultwarrior online too
stop saying you need to sacrifice for dual ac/20. My dual ac/20 goes 86 KPH, has 9 tons of ammo and full armour. yeah, the XL engine is a minor sacrifice, but considering the ridiculous firepower and killing power of the mech it's no more sacrifice than an XL in any other mech.
from the whole post it all sounds like a good idea but you seem to forget the 3 ppc+gauss alpha build...
if you decide to go on with this plan the heat penalty on PPCs should start on 3 PPCs plus..otherwise all those 4/6 PPC builds will just turn to 3PPC+gauss and nothing will be solved
if you do not decide to go with this plan then may be you should start thinking of simpler solutions PPCs and AC20s are the two weapons systems that are most responsible for the current high alpha mess..may be you should consider tweaking those 2 before you proceed with more complicated meassures that may end up doing more bad than good. (ex. increase PPC heat by 1-1.5)
other than that i really glad you guys are looking into it and i really hope we get a solution on this matter by the 18th
your K.I.S.S is flawed this isnt COD
its a simulation[a thinking mans shooter]
you should try to learn
what you play before you actually
can be a good Player or atleast learn by playing
but most ppl in this CONSOLE generation
just need the PC to play actually for them
instead of them playing the game on PC
as a Quakegeneration player
this video makes my standpoint very clear
of what we dont want that a game becomes
ps the changes they intend to do as wip is to stop alpha warrior online
hope soon they change assaultwarrior online too
I can't believe the plethora of responses in here that are just... so far off the mark it's insane. Including PGI's.
The problem - the only problem - is the hardpoint system.
The fix is simple. Give each 'hardpoint' a 2d grid to be filled with components that have a 2d space requirement. More similar to Mech Commander 2's system of handling components. Tonnage and criticals can be handled on a more global scale.
Mech 4's hardpoint setup was a little too restrictive - but the design really helped to give the various chassis their personality. At the same time, Assault mechs didn't run into near as much of a problem as they do in this game - and heavy mechs weren't as prone to exploitation of the hardpoint system.
Mechs like the Awesome could be one of the few with variants that support higher numbers of PPCs while a player in a Highlander can install two AC2's instead of almost being required to place a Gauss, AC20 or AC10 in that hardpoint to make it worth the investment.
For example - a PPC could be a 3x2 component while a large laser is a 2x2 - a 2x4 slot could hold two large lasers without opening up the option for a PPC to be installed there (since components would not be able to be rotated).
Thus - you expand your control and allowances over hardpoint loadouts while allowing players to customize their loadouts to a satisfying degree.
The problem, PGI, with the way you are trying to go about balancing weapons, presently - is that too many designs in Battletech just don't fit clearly within the distinction you wish to make. Is the BlackJack supposed to fire more than 4 medium lasers or 4 flamers at a time?
What about clan mechs like the Nova or Super Nova?
By adjusting the heat penalties to deal damage over 125% of heat capacity and implementing a better hardpoint system - the extreme point-alphas would begin to fall to the way-side (particularly as you began adjusting how heat capacity is derived).
Things like the AC40 cat/jager could be restricted out of existence (if desired) and such lethal builds restricted to Assault chassis.
These are things, PGI, that you should have thought about back in the "drawingboard" stage of this game. Many of the things you are having trouble with, currently, should have been well tested and resolved before your open beta.
Y'all need to get your **** together. You're a small developer. You don't have the resources to be mismanaging and misleading them.
another approach to this would be to assign a multiplier to the cd of wpns based on heat.
10-50% heat no modifier
50-75% x1.5
75-100% x2
so if you are running hot you simply can't fire until your wpns cool off
ballistics are using a safety mechanism so that you dont melt your barrels
missiles so that you dont cook them off in the launcher
lasers so you dont melt the ... whatever it is that these things are made
heat management was probably the biggest concern in the TT game but right now it seems to play very little into this game
Wrong, do not state opinions as facts. Both pulse and standard beam lasers have the same exact weapon firing mechanic, albeit pulses have a shorter burn time.
Here, review the images in this post here so that you can enlighten yourself. Don't be fooled by the different audio clips used by the pulse weapons. The audio of the pulse laser does not match up with the actual weapon mechanic.
Here is the burn of a pulse laser (Notice the "hundreds" of little dots that fire to make up the continous beam. Note that there is NOT 6 individual pulses.)
And here is the burn of normal beam lasers. (Also note the "hundreds" of small dots that make up the continuous beam).
It is literally the same weapon mechanic with just a shorter burn time. Hence why pulse lasers suck, same weapon with less range, more heat and MUCH more tonnage. Tweaking the numbers will do nothing.
I can understand why you think that, and based on that alone I'd agree with you. It would, in theory, make sense. However I see someone hasn't read up on their lasers. A game engine limitation actually prevents it from working as you perceive it.
Those dots are because they are using a game engine that doesn't have laser beams. It generates the typical bullet effect of the CryEngine in plenty of dots to try and create an illusion the beam effect and its client-side only in order to prevent the lag-intensive calculations it would do if done server-side. Any player who has been around would know not everything works as it appears on this game. If you streak an enemy with a laser, there's not "hundreds" of increments of damage data as that's simply a lag-inducing overload of non-consequential data. The pulse laser's damage is done in increments of no more than 6 intervals of damage. 6 for the medium pulse. 5 for the large pulse. It's been said in the past that the game cannot handle increments of damage faster than 10 per second or else they would fail to register. (This is partially why machine guns aren't as great as they are on paper, occasionally it fires faster than 10 bullets per second despite the set firing rate and some of those bullets don't register. Wasted ammo).
Also, if lasers really did generate that many 'shots' the game would slow to a crawl on older systems. Ironically lasers were the only functionally viable weapons for those with high ping and/or low end systems.
I realize you're both 1) awfully young and 2) weren't here until LATE October, however the mechanics of the lasers have already been explained in June (2012) and you're free to ask again at the ATD whenever you please. I'd ask you to read up and even provide you with a link however the closed beta threads are closed and sealed away (which sucks, as so much useful info was in there including how slower mechs can dodge incoming LRMs while standing out in the open by using the power down, power up, walk forward technique) and general ways to break locks (though they don't work against UAVs). I miss my favorite Schrodinger's Mech explanation as to why knockdowns were removed. That had so many likes and was so funny.
I stated facts. You're stating an opinion based on only part of the data. If you'd like, you can make a copy of your game, pull out your friendly 7zip, winzip, winrar, what-have-you, start extracting data and then popping it open with the cryengine. The LPL does damage in increments of 2 damage instantly in rapid succession. In other games with lasers, they use the same effect but you'll hear a damage effect at regular intervals (that's when the damage is actually dealt). None of them genuinely deal damage as often as the bullet decals appear. Not TimeSplitters, Eden, the various Star Treks, Deus Ex, Unreal Tournament, or any other game that has a beam weapon. Halo worked around this with a charging laser that does instant damage. An actual beam that does constant damage is simply unfeasible in a network environment with current technology until everyone's on 8 core processors with 32 gigabytes of ram and a 50mbps connection.
The issue, however, is you still have to hold the target for the full duration of that 'burst' in order for it to count. You'll notice if you just streak the target quickly you'll do virtually no damage. If you did it in hundreds of increments you'd actually do 'a little' damage (and yes, doing it by hundreds of little weak bullets would be much more 'laser-like' but it's not technologically feasible in an online environment with so many players running off of each server). You can streak a target with the large pulse laser and do no damage at all with a fast enough arm twist. It's because you must hold the target for an increment of 0.15 seconds in order to do any damage, in which case you do an instant 2 damage. 0.30 seconds and you do 4 damage. 0.45 seconds and you do 6 damage. 0.6 seconds and you do 8 damage. Finally 0.75 seconds and you deal the full 10 damage with the current large pulse laser. The proposed one would deal 2.12 damage per 0.15 seconds assuming the interval does not change.
Hold the target for 0.14 seconds and you deal NO damage. If it was "hundreds" of little bullets, and you'd still deal damage at 0.14 seconds.
Regular lasers deal damage in larger increments of much smaller amounts. I can't remember for certain but I believe the regular large laser does increments of 10. One lot of 0.9 damage per 0.10 seconds.
Welcome to reality, there's a reason the machine gun only does 10 bullets per second (with an actual rate between 8 to 13 on my computer). Anything as fast as 'hundreds of lasers' for the duration of 0.75 seconds wouldn't register properly on the game engine and might literally crash the HSR (which has to rewind and check your position for every single pulse of the laser; that's 5 times in 0.75 seconds for ONE laser!) when you consider the thousands of players using lasers on the servers (which already have loads of problems as it is). Now I suggest you ask either Paul or Garth or Bryan and they'll tell you the same thing because it's been the explanation given in the past by PGI, and the explanation given on several sites to include Smurfy.
TL;DR: You are correct on part of it, both lasers and pulse lasers use the same mechanic with shorter beam lengths and shorter increments for pulse weapons. But no more than 10 increments, pulses, or 'bullets' per laser type that register server-side as the servers do not register any intervals faster than 0.10 seconds. The bullet decal is just an 'easy' low-cost method of creating a 'beam' damage effect on the ground without having to rewrite how it's done and is client-side only. Ever tried writing a damage decal for an energy beam? It's a PAIN! Not to mention you need at least 9 different textures per terrain and/or target type instead of one texture for a quality effect. (Start/finish decal texture for at least 8 directions, and then a 'seamless' decal that could be endlessly repeated -- even then it's still done the same way just with no seams).
(Edited in year to clarify June 2012 not 2013.)
(edited to remove potentially antagonistic words/phrases.)
(edit: Found something interesting.)
Somehow I think this is what you want out of the pulse lasers.
1
This topic is locked
Sharp Spikes, on 12 June 2013 - 03:06 AM, said:
