721 replies to this topic

[MustrumRidcully]

Tal Kharn, on 08 July 2013 - 03:28 AM, said:

I've long asked myself why there was no mechanic that determined how much energy it required to fire different weapon system.

That's what heat represents. The fusion reactor is expected to produce how ever much energy you need, but as you drain this energy, you produce heat.

But ignoring that (and the illogical aspects of it): Changing to an energy model doesn'T do anything either.

How much energy do you need to fire an Auto-Cannon?
I don't know exactly, but I think it might be best summed as at "bascially nothing" compared to the energy drain of a laser that can melt off half a ton of armor in 1 second.

So you still only have a "solution" for energy weapons. But we already had that before, it was called heat.

[DarkJaguar]

MustrumRidcully, on 08 July 2013 - 10:40 PM, said:

That's what heat represents. The fusion reactor is expected to produce how ever much energy you need, but as you drain this energy, you produce heat.

But ignoring that (and the illogical aspects of it): Changing to an energy model doesn'T do anything either.

How much energy do you need to fire an Auto-Cannon?
I don't know exactly, but I think it might be best summed as at "bascially nothing" compared to the energy drain of a laser that can melt off half a ton of armor in 1 second.

So you still only have a "solution" for energy weapons. But we already had that before, it was called heat.

The problem with the solution of "heat" for energy weapons, is that energy weapons are given a boost to their usefulness by the automatic +30 to heat cap that every mech in MWO has. It's a silly system that only serves to create a huge amount of cushion to use energy weapons. In the 3025-3050 timeline, the vast majority of mechs have a heat capacity of 10-20 heat points, whereas the basic -stock- mech in MWO has a heat capacity of 40-50 heat points, leading to a situation where only 1 PPC would be feasible before, now 4 are feasible.

[Jack Lowe]

I'm just doing this quickly, and for some reason with IE the forum doesn't recognize the enter key. Sorry for the mess. I am glad you liked the post. In fact the idea of divergence is simply a parallel way of approaching the problem. It does exactly what your C.O.F. idea does. Weapons will still converge to a very tight almost pinpoint pattern within a weapons effective range. They will even remain quite tight a short distance beyond, as range increases beyond effective range the spread does as well. The only true difference, and it's a compromise of sorts, is that unlike the COF your proposing in this case they will do so in a predictable way. A person using one weapon wouldn't really notice a difference over what we have now. That allows for true extreme range sniping a skilled sniper will be able to account for and adjust to the trajectory change. It's only when firing multiple weapons they'll have a problem. Firing center mass with multiple weapons at extended range will be about the only thing they can do as they won't be capable of adjusting for all the different angles. Again, and I'm only stressing this because it seems I didn't clarify it in the earlier post, within effective range this effect largely disappears allowing a player to blaze away which seemed to be your concern. I admit the second proposal is less effective, I personally like it less. It's essentially a back up plan, or a possible complement to the first if it proves not to have the desired effect, and allowing another option to raise the skill bar for targeting if required. I'm just putting this in rather quickly got errands to run I will look over the other ideas you propose and post on some or all of them later today.

[MustrumRidcully]

DarkJaguar, on 09 July 2013 - 06:17 AM, said:

The problem with the solution of "heat" for energy weapons, is that energy weapons are given a boost to their usefulness by the automatic +30 to heat cap that every mech in MWO has. It's a silly system that only serves to create a huge amount of cushion to use energy weapons. In the 3025-3050 timeline, the vast majority of mechs have a heat capacity of 10-20 heat points, whereas the basic -stock- mech in MWO has a heat capacity of 40-50 heat points, leading to a situation where only 1 PPC would be feasible before, now 4 are feasible.

1) Get rid of the ridiclious heat cap and improve heat dissipation.
2) Deal with convergence + group fire. If the other is available, the other must be limited.
Balance, Group Fire, Convergence. Pick any two.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 09 July 2013 - 06:44 AM.

[Viper69]

Great read and I agree. In the past I have stated take our weapon damages and divide them by the number of shots in 10 seconds and give that new value to the weapon. Drop the armor back down and add convergence time to arm weapons converging on torso mounted weaponry. Also add in head and movement penalties to weapon accuracy.

[Tombstoner]

MustrumRidcully, on 09 July 2013 - 06:44 AM, said:

1) Get rid of the ridiclious heat cap and improve heat dissipation.
2) Deal with convergence + group fire. If the other is available, the other must be limited.
Balance, Group Fire, Convergence. Pick any two.

At this point in Beta all that's happening is a repeat of every single conversation that happened in closed beta just with new people. The same counter arguments and miss conceptions from both sides get recirculated.

What keeps me going is that PGI knows what a COF is and its not a RNG. Every real ranged weapon ever made has an area where the round will land. This is a simple fact. The size of that area is dependent on range, the quality of the weapon system, environmental effects and the skill of the user.

from wikipedia-

In the military science of ballistics, circular error probable (CEP) (also circular error probability or circle of equal probability^[1]) is an intuitive measure of a weapon system's precision. It is defined as the radius of a circle, centered about the mean, whose boundary is expected to include the landing points of 50% of the rounds.
for the jdam a guided bomb that uses lasers and GPS that 13 -7 meters, for a 500 lb bomb that's all you need.

In MWO its one pixel at max range all the time. I beleave PGI know this is an issue and nerfed pop tarting asap.

Pauls post regarding weapons subsystems leads me to beleave that a few player ideas are being considered. One of them i hope is the targeting computer load (TLC) system.

Once an accuracy factor is added then and only then can balance be approached yet never achieved, coming as close as possible knowing that you will never reach it with heat/ damage/ weight tweaks alone.

[stoph]

DarkJaguar, on 07 July 2013 - 12:07 PM, said:

I feel that you have completely missed the key point of this thread. Nothing I have stated is random, everything is affected by the player, from the CoF to the chance for an ammunition explosion. The CoF numbers I gave still net a 100% chance of hit on the enemy mech at a weapon's max range with a well aimed shot below your heat threshold. How is this a bad thing? Sure, the shot may not hit the exact pixel you meticulously selected to pair with your wine and cheese, but it still hit. Why is it an issue if it hits the left torso or right torso instead of the center?

No I haven't my point is just as valid as taking exact numbers from a turn based table top game and expecting them to work in a real time shooter when it has been explained multiple times in multiple ways why it doesn't work.

It was sarcasm.

[Jack Lowe]

Alright errands were unavoidably delayed. So I took the time to look over the ideas on damage and heat. What you've generated is quite interesting, I do wonder if you've factored in how they relate to one another.

You show in damage that almost all weapons with the exception of the srm6 I believe have higher damage values than TT. You also point out that heat generation appears to be higher as well if I read the charts correctly. What I don't see however is how they would combine together to give a true DPS value for the weapon. I remember using a centurion AL, for example, and actually utilizing a build with an overall lower potential alpha strike. This was because in order to manage heat and prevent shutdown it would require not utilizing some of my weapons all the time, this ultimately reduced effectiveness. A lower heat build even though it removed weapons such as the PPC would allow better overall damage output on average due to a more constant sustained fire.

Now I understand determining this number is somewhat arbitrary it depends on the chassis, number of heat sinks for dissipation and what not but it is only by combining the factors or heat and damage that we would come to an accurate number as to the true inconsistency between TT and MWO over the stated 10 sec interval. In fact I imagine being such difficult number to pin down is the chief reason for the problems we've seen with current attempts to balance weapons.
I do agree with your general idea on two points.

One that attempting to get the values to coincide with TT DPS values.as a benchmark from which to begin is a wonderful starting place. Even if they came out at 2x to account for double armor ok. I suggest they use only stock variants. As they are fixed points it would be easier to get the combined damage/heat DPS over 10 sec. number. We have to have a baseline somewhere or else we're screwed before we begin, the stock mechs are static thus creating a natural base line making them a logical choice to balance from. Once all weapons are putting out the correct adjusted DPS values on stock mechs, then effectively weapons are done, they are balanced. If imbalance remains, and I'm 100% certain it will, then you can effectively ruleout weapon imbalance as a problem. The only possible problems must be the outside variables you've introduced. Double heat sinks, convergence, hard points as a few examples. Introducing each one individually into the stock mechs will allow them to be isolated and balanced individually. Once you have one aspect working as intended you can add another layer, or isolate it out as needed. In the end it probably still won't be absolutely nuts on perfect but it should be close. I'm also of the strong mind that the hit registration/detection problems have thrown a huge snafu into the system. It's caused the devs to make changes with erroneous data as this bug gets addressed getting the system unborked will be a chore.

The second thing I like and have advocated is the idea on how autocannons should work. I've advocated something similar again from a lore standpoint, but also as a means to bring greater utility, variety and choice to the game. Do I for instance want a smaller caliber AC/10 with a 10 round cassette doing less damage per shell but with a longer burst time before reload, or a 5 round cassette for greater damage per shot but with a shorter burst time. It add so many things to the ballistics, one it tends to mitigate the ammo problems somewhat as it will take a player longer to run threw their ammo stock this way. It allows for true direct suppression fire, particularly for the smaller classes, without the need to mount upward of 30 tons of guns and ammo. forcing the mech into a one dimensional role and thus a turn off for some. The larger bore guns lose more as they can't focus all that destructive power in one location as easily. It actually gimps them down to closer to their natural effective range although they can be used beyond it with the limited ammo supply I would only do it in desperation. One thing they do gain is a bit more ease hitting faster moving targets at close range. Although the target probably won't take the full brunt of it the stream of shells allows for aim adjusting while shooting that in the hand of a good gunner the target is probably gonna still get it's fair share of misery. I am a avid fan of the AC/20 and other ballistic weapons and as much as I realize I'm giving up some things I think the gain more than makes up for it. Besides I am truly champing at the bit to have the autocannons as they were described in lore. Sending their streams of uranium depleted high explosive death down range.

That last sentence brings me to an aside. I've seen posts where people argue that autocannon rounds should behave like HEAT rounds penetrating at small point then shooting an explosive charge into the opening. They don't, they are HEAP rounds. They work more like the main gun on the A-10 Warthog except they have an explosive charge inside, each shell blowing out a chunk of armor the next a slightly larger one slowing chewing or eating their way threw like termites. I've seen several arguments made by people utilizing the wrong dynamic for how that weapon works to support their point. Just had to clear that up for some odd reason, some hidden psychological problem rearing it's head I guess.

Anyway hope this is enjoyed as much as the last post, and more so I hope it's useful.

[FireSlade]

PGI cannot touch the group firing mechanic or the alpha since that will just promote macros to bypass anything that PGI does to balance it. I can even see people setting up macros so that if they left/right click the mouse button that it will fire off weapons in such a way to maximize firepower and dps without overheating or if PGI implements a targeting computer load allowing the player to only have to keep the crosshairs on the enemy. The whole argument that MWO is a FPS and cannot put in some type of inaccuracy has never played a FPS. All of them do a cone of fire that is adjusted based on other factors like speed, aim down sights, etc. and that is how other companies balance their games. Thanks to the Pilot tree we know that PGI added convergence as a factor but they made it happen so fast as to have it not be a factor (like splash damage). While I am not a big fan of the cone of fire idea (I think we need something like cone of fire but more predictable like adaptive crosshairs) something has to be done other than weapon balance. The weapons are pretty close to being balanced with some tweaks making them perfect. What I believe that is driving the boating meta PPCs/Gauss/AC40s is that we can take more than one weapon and drive it home into a single point on the mech. It is also why people think that SRMs and the LBX suck because they cannot unload their damage into a single point as efficiently as other direct fire weapons. Relying on the player's skill to provide inaccuracy is the reason why there is no diversity; why take a LL or LPL when you can stuff a PPC into your mech and deal 10 damage as soon as the round hits? Now when the mech has to aim to the point of the crosshairs over a point in time now the player has to think and use patience to line shots up and thus giving up speed or accuracy to shoot the enemy. On top of this it may become rare to see someone fall to a single strike to the head or only one section of armor being destroyed but the rest of the mech has not be touched. Once aim has been addressed then you can work on balance and actually achieve balance. Plus aiming is one of the only things that you cannot put a macro on to give a player an advantage.

[DarkJaguar]

Jack Lowe, on 09 July 2013 - 08:48 AM, said:

Alright errands were unavoidably delayed. So I took the time to look over the ideas on damage and heat. What you've generated is quite interesting, I do wonder if you've factored in how they relate to one another.

You show in damage that almost all weapons with the exception of the srm6 I believe have higher damage values than TT. You also point out that heat generation appears to be higher as well if I read the charts correctly. What I don't see however is how they would combine together to give a true DPS value for the weapon. I remember using a centurion AL, for example, and actually utilizing a build with an overall lower potential alpha strike. This was because in order to manage heat and prevent shutdown it would require not utilizing some of my weapons all the time, this ultimately reduced effectiveness. A lower heat build even though it removed weapons such as the PPC would allow better overall damage output on average due to a more constant sustained fire.

Now I understand determining this number is somewhat arbitrary it depends on the chassis, number of heat sinks for dissipation and what not but it is only by combining the factors or heat and damage that we would come to an accurate number as to the true inconsistency between TT and MWO over the stated 10 sec interval. In fact I imagine being such difficult number to pin down is the chief reason for the problems we've seen with current attempts to balance weapons.
I do agree with your general idea on two points.

One that attempting to get the values to coincide with TT DPS values.as a benchmark from which to begin is a wonderful starting place. Even if they came out at 2x to account for double armor ok. I suggest they use only stock variants. As they are fixed points it would be easier to get the combined damage/heat DPS over 10 sec. number. We have to have a baseline somewhere or else we're screwed before we begin, the stock mechs are static thus creating a natural base line making them a logical choice to balance from. Once all weapons are putting out the correct adjusted DPS values on stock mechs, then effectively weapons are done, they are balanced. If imbalance remains, and I'm 100% certain it will, then you can effectively ruleout weapon imbalance as a problem. The only possible problems must be the outside variables you've introduced. Double heat sinks, convergence, hard points as a few examples. Introducing each one individually into the stock mechs will allow them to be isolated and balanced individually. Once you have one aspect working as intended you can add another layer, or isolate it out as needed. In the end it probably still won't be absolutely nuts on perfect but it should be close. I'm also of the strong mind that the hit registration/detection problems have thrown a huge snafu into the system. It's caused the devs to make changes with erroneous data as this bug gets addressed getting the system unborked will be a chore.

The second thing I like and have advocated is the idea on how autocannons should work. I've advocated something similar again from a lore standpoint, but also as a means to bring greater utility, variety and choice to the game. Do I for instance want a smaller caliber AC/10 with a 10 round cassette doing less damage per shell but with a longer burst time before reload, or a 5 round cassette for greater damage per shot but with a shorter burst time. It add so many things to the ballistics, one it tends to mitigate the ammo problems somewhat as it will take a player longer to run threw their ammo stock this way. It allows for true direct suppression fire, particularly for the smaller classes, without the need to mount upward of 30 tons of guns and ammo. forcing the mech into a one dimensional role and thus a turn off for some. The larger bore guns lose more as they can't focus all that destructive power in one location as easily. It actually gimps them down to closer to their natural effective range although they can be used beyond it with the limited ammo supply I would only do it in desperation. One thing they do gain is a bit more ease hitting faster moving targets at close range. Although the target probably won't take the full brunt of it the stream of shells allows for aim adjusting while shooting that in the hand of a good gunner the target is probably gonna still get it's fair share of misery. I am a avid fan of the AC/20 and other ballistic weapons and as much as I realize I'm giving up some things I think the gain more than makes up for it. Besides I am truly champing at the bit to have the autocannons as they were described in lore. Sending their streams of uranium depleted high explosive death down range.

That last sentence brings me to an aside. I've seen posts where people argue that autocannon rounds should behave like HEAT rounds penetrating at small point then shooting an explosive charge into the opening. They don't, they are HEAP rounds. They work more like the main gun on the A-10 Warthog except they have an explosive charge inside, each shell blowing out a chunk of armor the next a slightly larger one slowing chewing or eating their way threw like termites. I've seen several arguments made by people utilizing the wrong dynamic for how that weapon works to support their point. Just had to clear that up for some odd reason, some hidden psychological problem rearing it's head I guess.

Anyway hope this is enjoyed as much as the last post, and more so I hope it's useful.

Well said. One of the things that I did forget to mention in my OP is the automatic +30 heat cap. This is a pretty huge factor to weapons balance, because while on average a weapon is doing 2.05 times as much damage (after accounting for doubled armor, 4.1 before), It's dealing 4.21 times as much HPS. Now this seems like it would work out, but due to the quadrupled heat capacity, 4x the amount of heat on average means that some weapons are doing a less equitable amount of heat. The biggest winners in the HPS disparity? ER Large Laser, ER PPC, and the standad PPC, each rocking only 1.83x (ER PPC) to 2.0x (PPC) as much heat. This is important when you KNOW that your baseline heat cap is 4x as much. That means that off the bat, a PPC can fire twice as much as intended by canon balance numbers, while dealing 1.25x as much damage. Put together that's two and a HALF times as much damage for the worst of the three, while the best of the three (numbers wise is the ER LL @ 2.83x, however...) is the ER PPC, rocking 2.73x as much damage as is intended for the weapon to do in canon, and that's generally on a singular point.

Taking those numbers into consideration, what should be a 40 point alpha strike every 10 seconds (avg) is ACTUALLY a 109.28 point alpha strike when averaged over 10 seconds. And with pixel perfect aim, that means every point of that damage is very likely dealt to one location. There's only one mech in the game currently that can reliably field that much armor in any one location, it's little wonder that we see so many assaults on the field, anything else would be smashed in attoseconds when subjected to that amount of firepower.

FireSlade, on 09 July 2013 - 08:49 AM, said:

PGI cannot touch the group firing mechanic or the alpha since that will just promote macros to bypass anything that PGI does to balance it. I can even see people setting up macros so that if they left/right click the mouse button that it will fire off weapons in such a way to maximize firepower and dps without overheating or if PGI implements a targeting computer load allowing the player to only have to keep the crosshairs on the enemy. The whole argument that MWO is a FPS and cannot put in some type of inaccuracy has never played a FPS. All of them do a cone of fire that is adjusted based on other factors like speed, aim down sights, etc. and that is how other companies balance their games. Thanks to the Pilot tree we know that PGI added convergence as a factor but they made it happen so fast as to have it not be a factor (like splash damage). While I am not a big fan of the cone of fire idea (I think we need something like cone of fire but more predictable like adaptive crosshairs) something has to be done other than weapon balance. The weapons are pretty close to being balanced with some tweaks making them perfect. What I believe that is driving the boating meta PPCs/Gauss/AC40s is that we can take more than one weapon and drive it home into a single point on the mech. It is also why people think that SRMs and the LBX suck because they cannot unload their damage into a single point as efficiently as other direct fire weapons. Relying on the player's skill to provide inaccuracy is the reason why there is no diversity; why take a LL or LPL when you can stuff a PPC into your mech and deal 10 damage as soon as the round hits? Now when the mech has to aim to the point of the crosshairs over a point in time now the player has to think and use patience to line shots up and thus giving up speed or accuracy to shoot the enemy. On top of this it may become rare to see someone fall to a single strike to the head or only one section of armor being destroyed but the rest of the mech has not be touched. Once aim has been addressed then you can work on balance and actually achieve balance. Plus aiming is one of the only things that you cannot put a macro on to give a player an advantage.

I think I agree with you mostly? I'm having trouble parsing that in a way that makes sense. The main issue I want to touch on though is that you are absolutely right one the CoF in every other shooter, and that there is no reason to take a DoT weapon if a higher DPS burst weapon is available. PPCs out DPS every other energy weapon, as they should, but because they do it in one shot as compared to a DoT effect, they are so much more powerful. Even breaking down the PPC to two shots for 5 dmg/5 heat with a charge time of 5 sec would be workable (5 dmg/7.5 heat for ER PPCs). This still gives the PPC family a helacious punch compared to every other weapon, but it's so much more manageable. Granted for these numbers to be valid, the other weapons would also have to be normalized, and the heat scale would need to be fixed.

[MustrumRidcully]

FireSlade, on 09 July 2013 - 08:49 AM, said:

PGI cannot touch the group firing mechanic or the alpha since that will just promote macros to bypass anything that PGI does to balance it.

Dozens of online games have cooldowns and global cooldowns that cannot be macroed away. I am sure PGI can figure this out, too. Especially since we already have cooldowns (weapons) and global cooldowns (artillery strike,air strike) that can't be macroed away.

[FireSlade]

MustrumRidcully, on 09 July 2013 - 09:41 AM, said:

Dozens of online games have cooldowns and global cooldowns that cannot be macroed away. I am sure PGI can figure this out, too. Especially since we already have cooldowns (weapons) and global cooldowns (artillery strike,air strike) that can't be macroed away.

Most games that I have seen running global cooldowns and such are MMOs and it is to the point where players only hit one button to attack an enemy while the macro perfectly times each attack so that the perfect dps is achieved. If PGI puts in global cooldowns based on weapon type/size/etc. people will stop bringing other weapons and only use the most powerful so that they can have the highest burst damage. Yes macros would be useless but at the same time so would diversity. No one would waste the space bringing weapons that deal less damage if they cannot stack it with others to get a higher burst damage. Yes it is an idea and we need them but it is (to me at least) a bandaid fix that does not address why we have AC40s and PPC boats or the new one PPC & Gauss boats. From my experience and understanding, the way things have turned out the that they have is the convergence issue. Heat, missile damage/hitting location, and many others still need to be addressed and I agree with the OP that the weapons all need to be normalized so that you can think "do I take on weapon and do 20 damage or do I take 2 smaller ones and get 20 damage but at a higher DPS/heat". As for how that is done that is up to PGI but it needs to be done and right now they have too much on their plate (part of the reason why everything keeps getting pushed back and the delays for balancing fixes).

Edited by FireSlade, 09 July 2013 - 10:01 AM.

[jeffsw6]

MustrumRidcully, on 09 July 2013 - 09:41 AM, said:

Dozens of online games have cooldowns and global cooldowns that cannot be macroed away. I am sure PGI can figure this out, too. Especially since we already have cooldowns (weapons) and global cooldowns (artillery strike,air strike) that can't be macroed away.

How do you implement that in such a way that it is effective vs the guy with 4 PPCs, or the guy with 3 PPCs and a Gauss Rifle, but it is not crippling to the guy with 6 MLs?

More to the point, how do you implement it in a way that PGI can't screw up?

[Jack Lowe]

So if I read your reply correctly Mr. Jaguar the problem is essentially three fold as you mentioned in your original OP. One is that certain weapons are doing able to sustain fire longer than intended allowing them to do more damage than intended. Those weapons happen to be the one's creating the current meta. Second is that they can do this damage down to a pinpoint and because of their nature they can do it a extreme ranges. Third they can be boated with 4 to 6 and used in unison to give very high very accurate damage due to current mechanics, or lack thereof. So readjusting heat would be required to bring the worst of the culprits back in line but it's only a partial fix. Then people would just do what I did with my AL that is trade out some of their weapons for lower heat varieties probably gauss rifles. Problem get's better somewhat but not fixed. That's where your COF idea comes in which mitigates the problem of pinpoint high alpha shots and all is well. Yep that sounds about right fully agree with the general principles need to fix the problems.

We are probably not going to agree with the method, we've already said as much but at the same time remain respectful of the other's POV on the issue. See I used to shoot quite a bit, because of my proficiency with weapons I was given the opportunity and selected to be a .50 cal gunner on one of my ships. I realize that COF exists I've seen it in action. I also realize that with patience, practice, weapon familiarity and experience, in short skill that COF can be reduced in size. Where as I was once able to be certain of a head shot with an old .22 hornet on a rabbit at 75-100 yards just eyeballing it no scope, or be very confident of hitting a deer in the head with a muzzle loader at 150-200 yards using homemade round balls with only about 6 in of clearance between head and tree. I fully realize others would not be able to do so. My COF or margin for error as I thought of it as a child and theirs would have been significantly larger. I wasn't a professional shooter by any means I've run across one or two and they are truly something to watch, put me to shame that's for certain. Using skill and knowledge of their weapon they made shots I couldn't think about making then, definitely not now.

The key point is, one weapon, one shot, totally focused and concentrating on just that. Ask the same marksman to do something similar with 4 of the same weapon, fired simultaneously, and even if it were possible I am 100% confident that the results would be much different. Now if you were saying I could snipe with one weapon and still hit the limb or section of my choice although perhaps not pixel perfect right where I wished I would go with it. If you were saying it would get harder at more extreme range but it would be nothing more nor less than a matter of my skill at maintaining that target and with practice I could still hit the targeted area but perhaps not the precise point again firing only a single weapon then I would be able to go for it wholeheartedly. If you can determine how to bring that function into your convergence proposal then I will gladly give it absolute unrestrained support. Otherwise unless a better idea is tendered I'll have to stick with the ideas presented in my original post in this thread.

Edited by Jack Lowe, 09 July 2013 - 10:59 AM.

[Jack Lowe]

And to all those in this thread that are monitoring. Apparently Russ made a recent tweet that seemed to indicate that a fix of some sort for convergence may be in the works. He also disavowed any knowledge that COF was part of that fix. It's very vague, but it's there. I don't want to read to much into it but thought you would all want to be kept up on the latest tidbits such as they are.

[Garth Erlam]

Hey guys, I wanted to thank you for all of these ideas, and wanted you to know they have been forwarded to design. I cannot guarantee they'll be used, but thanks for the effort of putting your thoughts and ideas to paper text

[Tennex]

Garth Erlam, on 09 July 2013 - 12:24 PM, said:

Hey guys, I wanted to thank you for all of these ideas, and wanted you to know they have been forwarded to design. I cannot guarantee they'll be used, but thanks for the effort of putting your thoughts and ideas to paper text

just a +1 heat to both PPC and ERPPC would be fine imo.

baby steps

[MustrumRidcully]

FireSlade, on 09 July 2013 - 10:00 AM, said:

Most games that I have seen running global cooldowns and such are MMOs and it is to the point where players only hit one button to attack an enemy while the macro perfectly times each attack so that the perfect dps is achieved. If PGI puts in global cooldowns based on weapon type/size/etc. people will stop bringing other weapons and only use the most powerful so that they can have the highest burst damage.

First steps first. First we get rid of one of the primary advantages of boating.

THen we can look at balancing the advantages of high burst/single shot damage vs sustained DPS (and especially beams).

WHat you say isn't wrong. It's one of the reason why in the table top, an AC/20 weighs 14 tons to deal 20 damage, but 4 medium lasers are only 4 tons to deal 20 damage. Both have the same range, so the difference is not justified by range.
The reason is the MLs spread their damage a lot, even though both have random hit locations, the chance for the AC/20 to cause a nasty hit to a vital part of a mech was much better than tat for an ML. (And if you want to be precise - the heat sinks required for both weapons jump the AC/20 weight to 22, and the 4 ML weight to 16. That's still a 6 ton difference).

The table top measure will probably not work identical for MW:O, since there are several differences, but you get the idea. Basically, to get the same DPS with a low damage per shot weapon as with a high damage per shot weapon, you need less weight and/or heat and/or ammo. How much less is something to figure out.

This game has a long way to go to be balanced. There are no magic bullets that will solve all our problems in one go. But we need to identify the problems we have, find the causes, and address them, or we keep flailing around for another year.

*FRACKING FORUMS EAT MY POST*

jeffsw6 said:

How do you implement that in such a way that it is effective vs the guy with 4 PPCs, or the guy with 3 PPCs and a Gauss Rifle, but it is not crippling to the guy with 6 MLs?

Weapon-dependent Global Cooldowns.

A weapon with a beam duration might have no GCD at all,or a very short one.
A PPC or Gauss Rifle will have a longer one.

A benchmark I am considering: No more than 20 damage per 0.5 seconds, even on a mech that stacks an infinite amount of guns. (That's 40 DPS, btw. But of course ,only for a 0.5 second duration, you might deliver 0 damage for the next 10 minutes and end up with a DPS of 0.0).

That means an AC/20 or Gauss needs a 0.5 GCD. OTherwise, you could fire two shots in 0.5 seconds and deal more than 20.
An AC/10 or PPC needs 0.25 second GCD.
An AC/2 would need a GCD of 0.1 seconds.
A Medium Laser needs something... complicated. (1 second beam duration that only 50 % of the damage of the first ML counts, and the next beam contribute a bit less, and so on...) I might err on saying it should be something like 0 to 0.1 seconds.

Quote

More to the point, how do you implement it in a way that PGI can't screw up?

I don't implement anything, I am not working for PGI. I have my own software projects to care for.

I guess I could try praying. I heard it helps even if you don't believe in it.


But again, no silver bullets for balance. This is just a start. There are many more steps.

[Jack Lowe]

HEY HEY!! got the attention of THE Garth, I and I'm sure that Dark Jaguar will thank you for the reply and your interest Garth. Hope the ideas are helpful to your team and the game.

[Helmer]

Thontor, on 09 July 2013 - 01:05 PM, said:

While it's great to see you are forwarding this to design, I think it would be even better if someone could make a point by point reply to DarkJaguar's post... Explaining why they might agree or disagree with it, and their reasoning behind doing things the way they did, and why they have stuck with their flawed system.

Because then everyone expects it. People already rage about "Why did X question get answered and not mine?" Imagine how it would be when 1 person gets to sit down with Paul and someone else doesn't.

1) Like Garth pointed out here , everyone wants to have an indepth , back and forth conversation with the developers (mostly Paul).
2) Often times the issue or decision behind a problem or feature requests a baseline understanding of PGIs overall gameplan or future features. Something I doubt they're going to share. (Unfortunately!)
3) Time. No matter how well a developer might explain WHY they went with a different system, there will still be a hundred posts asking other questions, raising new arguments., etc etc. In this thread alone I simply stated I thought it was and interesting idea, I didn't see PGI changing a fundamental system this late in the game, and that Mechwarrior means different things to different people. All 3 are opinions. My personal opinion, and yet people wanted to argue opinion. And I'm just a forum janitor. Not particularly smart or creative , and with no input on the project what-so-ever (But still very damn good looking, just for the record).
If Paul actually did come into this thread I doubt he'd satisfy anyone ( .... ) Evenutally it would end up with some people understanding, some people saying Paul is an *****, some people saying PGI is stubborn and really doesnt want feedback, etc etc etc.

I'll be the first to admit, communication could improve greatly. Honestly tho, on a day to day , week to week basis, there's not much to communicate. "We're looking at feedback" "We understand the issues" "We're working on the game" are pretty much all anyone can say.


Cheers.