84 replies to this topic

[MustrumRidcully]

mike29tw, on 04 July 2013 - 02:15 AM, said:

Remove group fire makes no sense. I have 4 M.lasers in my second group, I have the heat capacity to fire them all, why shouldn't I be able to fire all of them at the same time? Removing group fire is as silly as removing alpha strike.


*Edit - Regarding OP's suggestion, you get points for being creative, but that's about it. Also, do I still do less damage if I chain fire them? It's very arbitrary when someone fire 4 PPC in sequence, and all of them deal different amount of damage.

Why would you deal less damage from chain-firing? Less damage then who or what?

The why is completely irrelevant to game balance. Just say the targeting computer can't do it differently. Battletech doesn't have good targeting systems, otherwise our missiles and ballistics would fly further than 1,000 to 2,000m, or we might be forced to use tanks because 10m high vehicles are not that difficult to hit normally.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 04 July 2013 - 07:35 AM.

[superbob]

Option 1: Leave as is
Unacceptable, leads to a downward spiral of balancing to a point all weapons feel the same and nothing seems to offer a distinctive punch. Min-maxers will still boat the strongest weapons and limit themselves to the chasis best suited for the purpose, except now the average player will harmlessly pound on the one with the maxed output, while the other would keep doing considerable damage despite the restrictions.

Option 2: Convergence
Will lead to min-maxing shifted toward lock-on weapons or constant DPS weapons (like AC2), alternatively making MWO a brawling game because convergence won't matter point-blank and specialized builds will remain OP, especially since long-range builds will lack the punch to stop them from closing.

Option 3: Escalating Heat Penalties & Option 5: Damage diminishing returns
Min-maxers will just mix weapon types to side-step the penalties/restrictions. Will likely lead to a downward spiral like Option 1, leading to constantly overheating/underperforming mechs dominated by "optimal" builds made via excel spreadsheets.

Option 4: Hardpoint sizes
This would probably lead to most controllable damage output with least fallout from over-balancing, but still amounts to spreadsheet-jockeys picking most "optimal" variants and loadouts and sticking to them, hitting much harder than a "balanced" build. Basically changes builds with most PPC to builds with most PPC+Gauss+ERLL and them killing everything else, while average players struggle to fit a decent loadout on their variants of choice.

Alright, so now I should probably suggest some solution of my own? Unfortunately I can't think of anything realistic at this point. I don't think this can be easily sidestepped by loadout restrictions, penalties and nerfing weapons into uselessness.

My only idea for saving this game is a drastic gameplay shift from the current happy-go-lucky skirmishes to a model where retreat is an option and hunting down every last enemy is not the goal. No, I don't mean like capwarrior online, although back when repair&rearm was briefly implemented, there was an increase in matches won by capping rather than by wiping out the opposing team. We had a "suggest game mode" thread stickied at some point, so there's really no shortage of ideas for things to do in MWO besides simple PvP. Problem is, simple PvP is what most people seem to want.

The current strict PvP, skirmish, all-or-nothing gameplay with no meaningful salvage or economy is IMO a perversion of the Battletech universe and one of the prime reasons the customization and TT-based weapon values don't seem to work. There's no real reason to use a chassis with less punch over the biggest and most powerful you have at your disposal, since being able to mop the floor with the other team is currently preferable to being able to, at best, outrun them and try to cap their base. Which is also a skewed image of how things should look like, because Cryengine3 can't handle really fast moving 'mechs, so the light class is effectively nerfed until they can fix that - even if there would be some advantage of moving 200kph+, we're not going to see it soon.

A year ago I'd sum this up as the game being too young to represent itself correctly, the problems outlined here strictly temporary and easily amended by upcoming features and game modes. Today... Well the launch date is drawing near and we still base all out estimates on a placeholder game mode hastily put together back in closed beta, with engine limitations restricting weight classes and once again a bad patch that has messed up the game for many players.

[Hythos]

HansBlix WMD, on 03 July 2013 - 08:20 PM, said:

The idea kind of makes sense. If two bullets hit the same shred of armor at the same moment they can't both damage it. Or if you've put a hole in a side torso, the next PPC might just pass right through instead of hitting something.

What about lateral shots which would penetrate the side-torso into the CT? Battletech allows for damage transfer to accommodate the hit-roll. Assume that in Battletech, a pilot aiming at and hitting a location that was already destroyed would otherwise simply have aimed for a good location instead of one already destroyed (the result of a successful hit). It is a simple system, but unless we have detailed damage effects (IE, a limb being partially blown off at a joint, for example) - the damage needs to be applied to the full location.
If a full list of criticals could be damaged (cockpit elements, engine, gyro, actuator, equipment), a system implemented like World War II on-line (or perhaps World of Tanks? Never played) would create an element where precise location damage and armor penetration would have a pronounced effect.

The only way I could see weapon damage diminishing returns be defended, is to have a full-power recharge time be greater than the weapon-cycle time; PPC's having a 10-second recharge (to full power), and any duration less than wouldn't allow for full damage/charge (energy weapons similarly timed, with Pulse LASERs having a faster recharge.)

As for implementing hard-point size restrictions OR with further weapon restrictions, is NOT a part of Battletech history, lore, or spirit (ref. Battletech Compendium Battlemech Construction rules). Yes, some units will be restrictive by Hardpoints, and some obsolete others (the old Stalker < Awesome argument) - but what I think people are forgetting, is that many of these units were built by different manufacturers, different Houses, and weren't always available to everyone. Here, we Lready own our chassis which won't be taken away from us (reset), but with Community Warefare, it'd be nice to see an amount of immersion that would have restrictions of availability. As it is now I could see no variation between, that may eventually have three different Mech-labs: Rentals, Owned I.S., and Owned Clan - which will set players into separate queues (Clan vs I.S.)

SO. Performance restrictions because of chosen builds? Ridiculous.

[Davers]

HomelessBill's solution would be the preferred solution. Indeed many of the 'alternative conversion' ideas that have floated around even before closed beta would have fixed the current problems, and have been much closer to the source material. BT is, after all, a game where wildly inaccurate robots usually end up punching and kicking each other. However, I doubt we will ever see a real change to convergence. Pin point accuracy seems to be one of the foundations that MWO is built on.

[Talrich]

Davers, on 04 July 2013 - 02:12 PM, said:

BT is, after all, a game where wildly inaccurate robots usually end up punching and kicking each other. However, I doubt we will ever see a real change to convergence.

It is funny that Battletech is the 3050 future, as imagined in the late 1980's and early 1990's. Giant mechs with weak computers were much easier to imagine typing away on your 486 processor and 60MB hard drive. These days, it's harder to believe that a multi-million c-bill mech has less computing power than a 2013 smartphone.

To your larger point, I'm inclined to agree. Homeless Bob's solution is pretty good, but probably not going to happen.

[Philadelphia Collins]

tl;dr lemme guess nerf everything...

[Talrich]

Philadelphia Collins, on 04 July 2013 - 03:05 PM, said:

tl;dr lemme guess nerf everything...

No, it's not a nerf everything. Here's the forty-five second read:

No nerf to single weapons. Minor nerf to the damage of the second large simultaneously fired weapon. Moderate nerf to the damage of the third large simultaneously fired weapon.

1, 2, 3 , and 4 PPCs currently inflict 10, 20, 30, 40 damage respectively.
Under this proposal they would inflict 10, 19, 27, and 34 damage respectively.

My proposal is to apply negative synergy damage adjustments to simultaneously fired weapons based upon their damage bracket. Boat builds will still be viable, even powerful, but it's a simple approach to moderate the impact.

[TheFlyingScotsman]

IMPO it should be:

Huge: AC20/Gauss/PPCs/LPL/LRM20
Large: AC10/UAC5/PPCs/Large Laser/LRM15/SRM6
Medium: AC5/AC2/Medium Laser/MPL/LRM10/SRM4/SSRM2
Small: MG/Flamer/Small Laser/SPL/LRM5/SRM2

Otherwise, I very much approve of this idea.

[Blackadder]

While i like the thoughts, and OP's post. The Developer has to look at proposed fixes, from the stance of how can we implement it, how fast can it be done, how many resources does it take, and what are the upsides/downsides.

As you can see from all the movement posts, putting in or drastically changing things has not worked out to well for PGI over the past year.

based on the OP's post.

Option #2 and Option #4 are frankly not possible in any kind of time frame that would fit into a fall launch, and would add new mechanics that create a new set of problems, which would need to be addressed, balanced broken and rebalanced.

Option #1 will result in major long term issues in terms of quality of game play.

Option #3 is workable, however an alternative to what the developer proposes is far superior, although it will change game play more. That is, reduce heat cap & increase heat dissipation which would put a hard cap on # of weapons allowed to be fired in essence, but allow higher DPS over time.

Option #5 is very interesting but somewhat complicates the game for newer players, who already have a steep learning curve, and player retention among new accounts has to be pretty bad in this game i would imagine.

At this point, i would rather people jump on a bandwagon and try to push the developer to put in a single solution such as a workable heat mechanic that will at least put some specific restrictions on us as players, that we can't get around. It will most likely mean the end of unconstrained freedom of mechs to an extent, but adding new solutions to address old problems, while creating completely new ones, does not seem to be a viable path given PGI's track record.

Edited by Blackadder, 04 July 2013 - 06:22 PM.

[Drunk Canuck]

General Taskeen, on 03 July 2013 - 08:21 PM, said:

Instead of dimishing return damage, why not just make things make more sense:

Lasers - Keep burn time concept (have to hold on one panel to do the full damage. Lasers are probably the only thing closer to being 'balanced'

Autocannons - They are full damage. Why not go back to the roots, and simply make them fast fire AC burst fire weapons, firing X amount of shells where if you hit with all the shells, you are doing a lot of damage, just possibly spread out. It solves all AC types in one go.

Pulse Lasers - Reduce damage, but majorly increase the fire rate. Doing small damage, really quickly to add up to the 'equivalent' damage.

PPC's - Make them a fast beam, so I guess like a laser, but a lot quicker. Add other features like heat transfer and messing up huds to make it 'unique-ish'

Gauss - I don't know, keep it as a high damage slug, and balance according to cool downs.

I think pulse lasers are fine where they are for damage, but I think their heat is a notch too high. I know they are supposed to generate more heat then their standard laser brothers, however for the range and heat output, they just aren't that great. When we get Clan variants of both the standard and pulse lasers, balancing them again is going to be more interesting. IS variants should generate more heat, but do competitive damage with their more expensive Clan brothers (if they make Clan tech super expensive, the over abuse of it won't be as big of a deal for quite a while).

PPC's need to have a higher heat penalty and the penalty should kick in after mounting 2 PPC's, whether standard or ER. Also, adjusting their range so that they have range diminishing returns would be another way to actually fix them, as well as having adjusted ranges, ER's shouldn't be able to do max damage at 1600 meters or whatever the distance is, they should be doing like 1 or 2 damage, same goes when you are within say 50 meters of a target. Their intention is supposed to be a long range weapon, but their distance is too far.

As for AC40 Mech's, simple, take out a single mounting slot from all Mech's capable of mounting them, a 65 ton Mech should not be able to run around with 28 tons of weaponry just because of the XL engines, then another 5 tons of ammo and the engine with no heatsinks since you don't overheat.

Increasing the recycle times and modifying the heat penalty on more powerful weapons is also something I would approve of them doing.

[Nexus Omega]

I have an Idea, Splash Damage,

If a section of a mech takes more than 30 Damage in say 0.5 seconds, damage over the 30 is applied to adjacent areas of the mech.

So if a 3xPPC + Guass highlander shots the Centre torso of a mech, the Mech CT takes 30 damage, and the LT and RT take the remainder @ 7.5 damage each.

Boom no more 30+ Alpha's

[Talrich]

Blackadder, on 04 July 2013 - 06:22 PM, said:

At this point, i would rather people jump on a bandwagon and try to push the developer to put in a single solution such as a workable heat mechanic

Unfortunately I don't think any heat-based approach can work as long as we have 1 heat Gauss cannons.

Nexus Omega, on 04 July 2013 - 06:44 PM, said:

I have an Idea, Splash Damage,

If a section of a mech takes more than 30 Damage in say 0.5 seconds, damage over the 30 is applied to adjacent areas of the mech.

I think that's interesting. I find it a bit radical, but worth adding to the list of options. It does, at least, directly address too much instant damage on one panel.

Returning to Damage Diminishing Returns (DDR), I've mocked up some examples, and I think I got one thing wrong. I think the medium weapon modifier should be 0.333, rather than 0.5. Below are some examples using DDR modifiers of Huge = -2, Large = -1, Medium = -0.333, and Light = 0 modifier, where the column is the number of same-type-weapons fired simultaneously.



DDR works with mixed simultaneous weapons as well, but it is a bit harder to show in a neat grid.

Edited by Talrich, 04 July 2013 - 07:10 PM.

[Nexus Omega]

Talrich, on 04 July 2013 - 07:08 PM, said:

I think that's interesting. I find it a bit radical, but worth adding to the list of options. It does, at least, directly address too much instant damage on one panel.

I win the Occam Razorist Award *dances* Worthy option!

[Lykaon]

Here is a potential problem with option 5.

Boated weapons of the same type are only a symptom of the problem.The core problem is pinpoint accuracy of front loaded damage.

If boating loads of PPCs becomes less effective then players will switch to something like 1 AC20 1 PPC 1 ER-PPC 1 AC10 or some other weird mix that allows for optimizing alpha boating.

Secondly even with the example numbers alpha boating is better than mixed builds and will still be the go to solution for quick kills.We will have a slight increase in time to kill and by that I mean on average an Assault mech will need one additional alpha to kill another assault so not a true solution but a step in the right direction.Alpha builds will still be the most effective and we will still have a distinct lack of diversity in mech loadouts and we will still see a lack of medium mechs in use due to vulnerability to alpha strikers.

Now my thoughts are the quickest fix that addresses the widespread ability to put alpha boat builds on anything with hardpoints is limiting hardpoints to have a max crit space per hardpoint.

If hardpoints got this treatment then specific chassis and variants of chassis can be targeted and modified and we will minimize unintended nerfs to unintended chassis.

Your listed cons for Hardpoint limits fail to take into acount a few things.

Firstly the entire purpose is in fact to limit builds to prevent unfettered munchining of alpha boats so yes there will be a loss of customization.All of the other proposed solutions also in their own way limit customization so this is a moot point toss it out.

One needs to stop thinking about a specific mech using a specific build and how this hardpoint limitation will effect specific builds on specific mechs.Maybe a hunchabck can't fit a specific build but perhaps a Centurion variant can.

We need to shift to thinking about what mechs are better at specific roles and the builds that can be used on those mechs.
It may limit design options for players with fewer mechs however it does now require players to put some thought into what chassis is best suited to a desired battlefield role.

The use of hardpoint restictions does not break when chassis that can as in your example take dual Gauss and dual PPCs ( I assume you mean a Devestator and that is 5-6 years out )

Mechs that can by their default configurations be alpha damage boaters will not break the hardpoint restrictions because there already exists a means to tailor design these mechs to retain balance.

MWo already has a quirks system and an engine size cap mechanic that can be applied to specific mechs to retain balance.

A Devestator may be able to load up 2 guass rifles and 2 PPCs but if it has poor acceleration and deceleration or slow torso rotations the Devestator would be a potent long range alpha boat but will not be ducking in and out of cover or tracking close in targets in brawl range just as well as mechs at 600+ meters.

No change can be developed in a vacuum clearly other mechanics must be used in addition to create an effective balance.

[BigMekkUrDakka]

tl dr

[Talrich]

Lykaon, on 04 July 2013 - 07:28 PM, said:

Here is a potential problem with option 5.

If boating loads of PPCs becomes less effective then players will switch to something like 1 AC20 1 PPC 1 ER-PPC 1 AC10 or some other weird mix that allows for optimizing alpha boating.

Sorry if you missed it, but I did try to address this. The solution I suggested applies equally to mixed weapon types firing simultaneously. The only added complexity is the order the penalty is applied to different sized weapons. That could be debated, but I suggest that the largest weapon acts as last in the chain of applied penalties; ignoring small weapons from the count.

For example, in this proposal for the simplest case:

• two PPCs fired simultaneously do 19 damage.
  
• one PPC + one ER PPC fired simultaneously do 19 damage.

For a little more complexity:

• one PPC (10) + one Gauss cannon (15) would take a -2 point penalty and do 23 damage.

[R Razor]

A two fold approach to the problem would eliminate the balance issue without any need to change damage rates or method of fire.............limit the hard points by weapon crit size (no more replacing a 3 or 5 slot weapon with a Gauss or AC20 for instance) and set up match making to include a tonnage limit..............no more 4 assaults (or 3 assaults and a light etc, etc, etc) in a 4 man. I don't feel as though I'm in a position to say what the limitation on tonnage should be in MWO as it's so vastly different from the TT game, but I think the guys with the 50lb brains could probably come up with something.

[mike29tw]

MaddMaxx, on 04 July 2013 - 07:25 AM, said:

If I have 4 PPC's and the Heat capacity to fire them, why shouldn't I be able to? Your argument is not very convincing, or do you just not like the 10 point based weapon clusters versus that 5 point based weapon clusters?Or do we translate that to mean that you do not mind the current 4-5 PPC Alphas ifd the player can accomadate their heat then?

I to think the OP has a new thought but it lacks that "why is that happening exactly factor". If I add more engine, do I gain back that lost damage? etc etc.

I still like 2 options. Either get rid of Group fire all together. It is the real cause, not a 10 point weapon that can be stacked.

OR

Implement the "Targeting Computer" into the Group fire mechanic such that forces the automatic added weight of the TC for every weapon in a Group over 2. The rules are explicit and the weight gain can be substantial if one want to add 4 or 5 weapons (not even all the same) to a Stack. It could work just like the current Artemis system, you add, the system auto increase the used Crit space and tonnage.

I think the real question is, WHY DOES ANYONE HAVE THE HEAT CAPACITY TO FIRE 4 PPCs?

I'm more convinced that you will fix the game if you fix the heat system.

[Kmieciu]

General Taskeen, on 03 July 2013 - 08:21 PM, said:

Instead of dimishing return damage, why not just make things make more sense:

Lasers - Keep burn time concept (have to hold on one panel to do the full damage. Lasers are probably the only thing closer to being 'balanced'

Autocannons - They are full damage. Why not go back to the roots, and simply make them fast fire AC burst fire weapons, firing X amount of shells where if you hit with all the shells, you are doing a lot of damage, just possibly spread out. It solves all AC types in one go.

Pulse Lasers - Reduce damage, but majorly increase the fire rate. Doing small damage, really quickly to add up to the 'equivalent' damage.

PPC's - Make them a fast beam, so I guess like a laser, but a lot quicker. Add other features like heat transfer and messing up huds to make it 'unique-ish'

Gauss - I don't know, keep it as a high damage slug, and balance according to cool downs.

That would only leave the missiles as a high alpha weapon? Or do you propose ripple fire as well?

[Lykaon]

Talrich, on 04 July 2013 - 07:45 PM, said:

Sorry if you missed it, but I did try to address this. The solution I suggested applies equally to mixed weapon types firing simultaneously. The only added complexity is the order the penalty is applied to different sized weapons. That could be debated, but I suggest that the largest weapon acts as last in the chain of applied penalties; ignoring small weapons from the count.

For example, in this proposal for the simplest case:

• two PPCs fired simultaneously do 19 damage.
  
• one PPC + one ER PPC fired simultaneously do 19 damage.

For a little more complexity:

• one PPC (10) + one Gauss cannon (15) would take a -2 point penalty and do 23 damage.

This does nothing to address the core issue and that is alpha boating.Even with deminished returns alpha boats will still be the way to go.

As long as MWo uses distinct body locations with distinct armor values per location the best way to apply damage will be as one pinpoint strike applying all damage to one spot.

If this option is applied to all weapons it will still mean alpha boats will be the way to go and mixed builds or missile boats will always be second class.I will still take a mech that dishes out 30 to one spot over a mech that can lay down 50 spread across multiple locations even if that 30 damage was nerfed from a base value of 40 it's still a no brainer.

I see no difference in the end results other than a slight increase in the time to kill on the highest weight class mechs.The end results will still be assault mech alpha strike online.On the lower weight classes there will be no change.Who really cares if an alpha strike now does 36 instead of 40 when all you needed was 30?

I do not see how this reduction to damage using a deminishing returns value does anything that simply boosting armor values can't do and boosting armor values is much less complicated.

I am convinced that the simplest fix is to apply hardpoint space limits combined with the already in use quirks mechanic.

The only fix I am convinced will work is simply not allowing optimized alpha strike builds on everything with energy or ballistic hardpoints.

If a Stalker simply could not pile on 6 PPCs it's fixed no more 6x PPC stalkers.I fail to see how having a six PPC stalker dealing 50 damage instead of 60 fixing anything.It's still the best way to deal damage.

In the long term MWo will need a combination of features to create a more balanced game.What we need now is to impliment the quickest solution that is also a part of a long term solution.

In my mind I see a three step process.

Hardpoint limits
Improved heat scale and over heat penalties
Improved convergence mechanics

Of these three Hardpoint limits is the likely canidate for fastest turn around and implimentation.

Edited by Lykaon, 04 July 2013 - 11:33 PM.