113 replies to this topic

[Villz]

D1al T0ne, on 08 September 2013 - 09:07 AM, said:

I did drop an "sage like wisdom bomb". I addressed the root of the issue and then you went off on a raving lunatic tangent of quadruple post edits in some strange juvenile attempt to discredit my premise.

Fix the hardpoint system, and there won't be any need to keep balancing weapons around the fact that people will try to cram as many of the most powerful weapon on their mech that they can. It's pretty damn simple really.

This thread reads like the three stooges standing around a patient who has a splinter in his finger, and they're all trying to decide the best way to cut his finger off, but I'm in the back going "Hey, why don't we just pull the splinter out?"

Thanks for having me.

D1al T0ne is a pretty cool guy, eh shoots the mecha and doesn't afraid of anything!

Also. the funny part is your actually 100% wrong. All you do is side step the real problem when u try to justify some r tarded hardpoint system because at that point the best weapons arms race still happens just over a selevt few chasis only leaving the rest of the mechs unplayable or substandard AKA The pretty baby

Cya

/wave

Edited by Villz, 08 September 2013 - 09:24 AM.

[YueFei]

Restricting the hardpoint system is not a viable solution. There are stock mechs that boat weaponry, and if you make hardpoint restrictions, then all players will flock to a handful of stock mechs and variants.

What balanced boats in the TT was the fact that, despite having a stack of the same weaponry, each individual weapon would fire and likely strike a different armor panel on the target.

What keeps laser boats balanced in MWO is the fact that they are DoT weapons. If you're attentive, you can spread the damage you take from laser boats on-reflex.


Changing UAC/5 into a stream of projectiles, making it also DoT, is also a way to balance it.


The other ACs can be left alone, since all the weight is supposed to give you the advantage of putting your damage into a single spot. That would also give people a reason to take AC/5 instead of UAC/5.

[Black Ivan]

The Machine Guns are a catastrophe now. They crit to easily and kill a mech in mere seconds.

[D1al T0ne]

Villz, on 08 September 2013 - 09:22 AM, said:

D1al T0ne is a pretty cool guy, eh shoots the mecha and doesn't afraid of anything!

Also. the funny part is your actually 100% wrong. All you do is side step the real problem when u try to justify some r tarded hardpoint system because at that point the best weapons arms race still happens just over a selevt few chasis only leaving the rest of the mechs unplayable or substandard AKA The pretty baby

Cya

/wave

You tell me that my system will create substandard mechs... and then point out that the current system is already creating substandard mechs, AKA the pretty baby.

Wow.

Just, uhhh wow, thanks for doing me the favor of proving that your counter argument doesn't hold any weight at all.

I'm still here!

Hi!

[Lysander Voidrunner]

I've been using LLs as my main DPS weapons since I started using my 732 as my main mech. The build used to be perfectly ballanced. No JJs with 3LLs and 1 Gauss with 50 rounds. It was so heat efficiant that I hadn't shut down once and had enough punch to burn through anything.

Now, with the changes in the recent patches, it has changed. The only thing that hasn't is the fact that if you're good and know how to track, the LLs stay on target, no need to lead, no need to assume. You point and the damage is applied. Even if you miss, you can always correct and some of the damage will be applied. This isn't an all or nothing weapon, it gives you options, it gives you leeway that other weapons such as the UAC5 doesn't. Don't get me wrong, in perfect circumstances the UAC5 is an awesome weapon and tops the DPS charts, but nothign is ever perfect so I stick with my LLs.

The gauss, unfortunatly is now gone for me. I used it as a medium-long range assault weapon where I could reliably hit targets that popped up behind hills at range (Alpine for example) however, now, with the required .75 second chargeup time, I feel that it has become impractical for my gamestyle. So I replaced it with an AC10. Not the same results but at least I do more damage in the later stages of the engagement. I still feel that they should have added a decoupling for the gauss and the PPCs of .75 seconds and increased the reload speed of the gauss to 4 seconds. That would have acchieved the anti 3D and 732 PPC Gauss combos they were trying to eliminate while not adding a mechanic that gimps your sniping capabilities. Not saying that the gauss is useless nowadays, I'm just saying that it has become a weapon with more downsides than any other weapon in the game. With the longest cooldown, the most fragile frame, the heaviest weapon, needs a large supply of ammo and a specialist gameplay mechanic. If PGI's goal is really to make the game as open to newcommers as possible, they have to realize that newcommers will equip the Gauss, try it out and more probably than not, conclude that it's too much of a hassle to use or even too complicated, afterall, they had problems with simple mech controls, how will they handle this?

[D1al T0ne]

YueFei, on 08 September 2013 - 09:23 AM, said:

Restricting the hardpoint system is not a viable solution. There are stock mechs that boat weaponry, and if you make hardpoint restrictions, then all players will flock to a handful of stock mechs and variants.

What balanced boats in the TT was the fact that, despite having a stack of the same weaponry, each individual weapon would fire and likely strike a different armor panel on the target.

What keeps laser boats balanced in MWO is the fact that they are DoT weapons. If you're attentive, you can spread the damage you take from laser boats on-reflex.


Changing UAC/5 into a stream of projectiles, making it also DoT, is also a way to balance it.


The other ACs can be left alone, since all the weight is supposed to give you the advantage of putting your damage into a single spot. That would also give people a reason to take AC/5 instead of UAC/5.

You didn't read my post at all. I listed four different ways in which the hardpoint issue could be addressed in order to stop the rodeo clown nerf/buff cycle that PGI is currently engaged in.

It doesn't matter which weapon you nerf. At all. Period. Whichever weapon is the next most powerful weapon on the list will be the weapon that people cram onto their mechs. They will pick the chassis that can fit the most of that type of weapon. They will fit as many of them on as possible, just like people are doing with UAC/5's after the PPC nerf; just like people did wth PPC's before the PPC nerf.

You can't balance the weapons, until you balance the hardpoints.

People can argue all they want, but when UAC/5's get nerfed, then there will simply be a new meta that everyone will be back in another thread like this one trying to nerf it.

[YueFei]

D1al T0ne, on 08 September 2013 - 09:46 AM, said:

You didn't read my post at all. I listed four different ways in which the hardpoint issue could be addressed in order to stop the rodeo clown nerf/buff cycle that PGI is currently engaged in.

It doesn't matter which weapon you nerf. At all. Period. Whichever weapon is the next most powerful weapon on the list will be the weapon that people cram onto their mechs. They will pick the chassis that can fit the most of that type of weapon. They will fit as many of them on as possible, just like people are doing with UAC/5's after the PPC nerf; just like people did wth PPC's before the PPC nerf.

You can't balance the weapons, until you balance the hardpoints.

People can argue all they want, but when UAC/5's get nerfed, then there will simply be a new meta that everyone will be back in another thread like this one trying to nerf it.

I did read your post. Your solution does not work. Point by point:

1.) How are weight limits per limb supposed to stop the boating for the current FOTM most powerful weapon, when there are stock mech weapon boats of all kinds of weapons, from missiles to energy weapons to ballistics?

2.) Again, how does this help? Control how many PPCs go into a mech? There are stock mechs that boat PPCs.


3.) Bzzzt, wrong again. Again, there are stock mechs that boat a stack of "large" weapons. How does your hardpoint restriction work on that?

4.) Annnnddd.... once again this fails because there are stock mechs that boat weapons.


The reason I didn't reply to your earlier post point-by-point was because I only needed to bring up one fact, which is the fact that stock mech boats exist.


What keeps the Hunchback-4P from being overpowered, despite that it boats 9 Medium Lasers? It's because it is DoT. A single medium laser isn't overpowered, and because of the DoT mechanic, even a stack of 9 Medium Lasers is not overpowered. Unless you're a dunce who sits there and eats the full 1 second burn time of the lasers.



You can balance using mechanics. Someone wants to take UAC/5 for lots of raw DPS? That's fine, balance it by making it DoT, or increase the recycle time. Then, a player can choose AC/5, instead for less DPS, in exchange for having greater pin-point burst damage. Up sides and down sides to every weapon, so that the decision making a player has in a match, and how they match their strengths against their opponent's weaknesses, is the primary deciding factor in a match, not the relative strengths of their weapon loadouts.

[Villz]

D1al T0ne, on 08 September 2013 - 09:38 AM, said:

You tell me that my system will create substandard mechs... and then point out that the current system is already creating substandard mechs, AKA the pretty baby.

Wow.

Just, uhhh wow, thanks for doing me the favor of proving that your counter argument doesn't hold any weight at all.

I'm still here!

Hi!

LOL! wow just wow.

Can u even read?

Seriously do me a favour and just get out of my thread. If the only thing your going to do is splurt out a stream of illogicial trash at every person who posts its probably better you just dont participate in the thread.

Also i used 1 of the current examples of a mech that is useless due to hardpoint limitations. As a basis as to what 90% of the mechs would turn into as a result of your "genius" system. If you can't see that your clearly a fool to which i bid u farewell. The only person more foolish than a fool is the person who tried to reason with them.

Btw you should put up some gameplay videos so i can reflect upon them and sharpen up my own play. I'd really enjoy getting inside the cockpit along side the likes of a gameplay mechanics genius such as yourself.

YueFei, on 08 September 2013 - 10:02 AM, said:

I did read your post. Your solution does not work. Point by point:

1.) How are weight limits per limb supposed to stop the boating for the current FOTM most powerful weapon, when there are stock mech weapon boats of all kinds of weapons, from missiles to energy weapons to ballistics?

2.) Again, how does this help? Control how many PPCs go into a mech? There are stock mechs that boat PPCs.


3.) Bzzzt, wrong again. Again, there are stock mechs that boat a stack of "large" weapons. How does your hardpoint restriction work on that?

4.) Annnnddd.... once again this fails because there are stock mechs that boat weapons.


The reason I didn't reply to your earlier post point-by-point was because I only needed to bring up one fact, which is the fact that stock mech boats exist.


What keeps the Hunchback-4P from being overpowered, despite that it boats 9 Medium Lasers? It's because it is DoT. A single medium laser isn't overpowered, and because of the DoT mechanic, even a stack of 9 Medium Lasers is not overpowered. Unless you're a dunce who sits there and eats the full 1 second burn time of the lasers.



You can balance using mechanics. Someone wants to take UAC/5 for lots of raw DPS? That's fine, balance it by making it DoT, or increase the recycle time. Then, a player can choose AC/5, instead for less DPS, in exchange for having greater pin-point burst damage. Up sides and down sides to every weapon, so that the decision making a player has in a match, and how they match their strengths against their opponent's weaknesses, is the primary deciding factor in a match, not the relative strengths of their weapon loadouts.

Dialtone clearly just trying to troll or to score points in some kind of "The View" esque backwards logic system. its pointless to even bother man.

Take Khobai for example i disagree with him in alot of things but atleast he argues out his point of view with logic and rationality. This guy here clearly is not bound by the restraints of logic or reason

Edited by Villz, 08 September 2013 - 10:09 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Hardpoint restrictions are a fluff tool, not a balance tool.

The canon is full of mechs with mixed weaponry that no one would play in MW:O.
It also contains a lot of boats that people would flock to.

How do you fix this? Just allow the first group of mechs?
But even in this group of mechs, there are some that have a better weapon combination then others. You may have a choice between a mech that can carry 2 PPCs, 2 MLs and 2 MGss or a mech that can carry only 2 LL and 2 short range missile launchers. Guess which of these would have been fan favourites in the past months?

You can try to balance the game with hard point restrictions if you throw out all those stupid stock mech configurations and only make mechs with hard points that are proven to be balanced. Best to then also get rid of the mechbay and give players predetermined chassis that are designed to be balanced against each other.

The balance model of the table top game is rather simple. Everything boils down to "hwat can I cram in my weight allotment"?
Sure, you cna install 5 PPCs in a mech, but if you can't afford the heat sinks to run it, it sucks. You always pay a price that boils down to tonnage cost.

There were some prerequisites for this. For example, a punishing heat system that wasn't build around having people race to shutdown, but about people having to deal with the trade-offs off high heat. PGI's heat system doesn't achieve this, and so balancing basically requires trying to balance builds agains each other with supplemental rules. The system also didn't care if you shot multiple identical weapons or multiple different weapons - they were all treated the same.
Fix the heat system, fix convergence/group fire. Then you can slowly start balancing weapons against each other, without ghost heat, without hard point restrictions, without special snowflake mechanics. You can keep the hardpoint restrictions to make chassis feel different, without any chassis being accidentally gimped in that process.

[Villz]

MustrumRidcully, on 08 September 2013 - 10:07 AM, said:

Hardpoint restrictions are a fluff tool, not a balance tool.

The canon is full of mechs with mixed weaponry that no one would play in MW:O.
It also contains a lot of boats that people would flock to.

How do you fix this? Just allow the first group of mechs?
But even in this group of mechs, there are some that have a better weapon combination then others. You may have a choice between a mech that can carry 2 PPCs, 2 MLs and 2 MGss or a mech that can carry only 2 LL and 2 short range missile launchers. Guess which of these would have been fan favourites in the past months?

You can try to balance the game with hard point restrictions if you throw out all those stupid stock mech configurations and only make mechs with hard points that are proven to be balanced. Best to then also get rid of the mechbay and give players predetermined chassis that are designed to be balanced against each other.

The balance model of the table top game is rather simple. Everything boils down to "hwat can I cram in my weight allotment"?
Sure, you cna install 5 PPCs in a mech, but if you can't afford the heat sinks to run it, it sucks. You always pay a price that boils down to tonnage cost.

There were some prerequisites for this. For example, a punishing heat system that wasn't build around having people race to shutdown, but about people having to deal with the trade-offs off high heat. PGI's heat system doesn't achieve this, and so balancing basically requires trying to balance builds agains each other with supplemental rules. The system also didn't care if you shot multiple identical weapons or multiple different weapons - they were all treated the same.
Fix the heat system, fix convergence/group fire. Then you can slowly start balancing weapons against each other, without ghost heat, without hard point restrictions, without special snowflake mechanics. You can keep the hardpoint restrictions to make chassis feel different, without any chassis being accidentally gimped in that process.

Woa did someone just use the balance forum to lay out a well articulated posting of his own thoughts and reflections?

Wtf is this?

[Lightfoot]

The Gauss nerf was overkill. All the timid pilots act like the Gauss was a big deal, but it's got medicore DPS for a ballistic and was only used alot because A) it fits in mech's arms and B ) it could adapt to not knowing what map you are getting ready for in Mechlab. It's weak in DPS for it's range and DPS per ton as well.

No one is using the Gauss in the games I have observed. They have one loaded, but the ammo never ticks down. Even when just standing and waiting for the target to walk into view, they fire the AC2 like mad, but not the Gauss.

I know players used the Gauss alot before the patch, but that has more to do with MWO not having Map selection enabled yet. If I know I am going to the City or Canyon, I will take an AC20 and maybe UAC-5 and Medium Lasers and if a Gauss toating fool comes at me they will lose badly. Very badly.

There was nothing OP about the Gauss except in players heads. It would never have been what some call the Meta if map selection was enabled in MWO because the Gauss just can't do the DPS of other ballistics.

The correct level of adjustment for the Gauss would be to increase the recharge by one or two seconds. Making it unusable to most players does not benefit the Lore of the game or the character of the Gauss.

Edited by Lightfoot, 08 September 2013 - 11:13 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Woa did someone just use the balance forum to lay out a well articulated posting of his own thoughts and reflections?

Wtf is this?

Nothing that hasnt been said before. And its a widely shared sentiment that the game's heat and convergence systems are fundamentally flawed. Unfortunately, we have to be realistic here, and its highly unlikely that PGI is going to get into changing core game mechanics this late in deveopment... were basically stuck with what we have now, and bandaids are all were ever going to get.

[Villz]

Never have i encountered a community so adamant in the fact actually hitting what you aim at in a FPS is a bad thing... lol

But i guess if i couldn't aim to save my life i would probably be a fan and come to think about it most ppl who play this game are pretty ordinary so i could see this being a popular one. Oh now it makes sense

Tbh i do agree with the heatscale
and i think all the other problems in the game are somewhat symptoms of that core mechanic being borked IMO.

If the heatscale was 30 or even 40 but they increased disapation. Not only does damage become less bursty but even ghost heat is redundant at that point. U gunna shoot 3 10 heat ppcs and a gauss with a 40 scale and watch ur heat goto 95%?

then what.

Obv u would have to increase dissipation to counter it.

Edited by Villz, 08 September 2013 - 11:22 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Never have i encountered a community so adamant in the fact actually hitting what you aim at in a FPS is a bad thing... lol

Its not a bad thing. The problem is were using armor ratios derived from a game system with random hit locations and importing them into a game system with precise aiming. The result of which is radically unbalanced.

[Villz]

Khobai, on 08 September 2013 - 11:27 AM, said:

Its not a bad thing. The problem is were using armor ratios derived from a game system with random hit locations and importing them into a game system with precise aiming. The result of which is radically unbalanced.

can't argue that point i've actually had many discussions with clan mates on that topic. I figured moving about 10%-20% of the armour from the arms and legs into the CT would help fix that.

[Khobai]

Actually i think increasing internal structure is the way to go for reasons i will elucidate on.

1) if you increase armor, weapons like the AC/20 become less effective as armor punches. But if you increase internal structure instead, an AC/20 still penetrates armor and crits components just as quickly as before, but destroying the entire location takes a little longer.

2) increasing internal structure gives crit-seeking weapons like the LB10X more of an advantage because items will be more likely to get critted before the entire location is destroyed.

3) increasing internal structure doesnt change any of the current builds. armor values all stay the same. all thats different are the internal structure values which you dont even see.

4) its super easy for PGI to do all they have to do is change the internal structure modifier value.

Edited by Khobai, 08 September 2013 - 11:43 AM.

[Villz]

Khobai, on 08 September 2013 - 11:36 AM, said:

Actually i think increasing internal structure is the way to go for reasons i will elucidate on.

1) if you increase armor, weapons like the AC/20 become less effective as armor punches. But if you increase internal structure instead, an AC/20 still penetrates armor and crits components just as quickly as before, but destroying the entire location takes a little longer.

2) increasing internal structure gives crit-seeking weapons like the LB10X more of an advantage because items will be more likely to get critted before the entire location is destroyed.

3) increasing internal structure doesnt change any of the current builds. armor values all stay the same. all thats different are the internal structure values which you dont even see.

4) its super easy for PGI to do all they have to do is change the internal structure modifier value.

Definatly fits into the whole give every weapon a place concept

[MustrumRidcully]

Villz, on 08 September 2013 - 10:14 AM, said:

Woa did someone just use the balance forum to lay out a well articulated posting of his own thoughts and reflections?

Wtf is this?

My name is Mustrum Ridcully. That's how I roll - pointlessly trying to analyse, understand or explain the system and its flaws and strengths* as if the devs would ever read or follow any player's analysis. So many have tried and failed with me.

*) well, mostly flaws. Though I'd like to mention that lasers as DOT weapons was brilliant, the best idea PGI ever had (stolen from MW:LL, apparently).

[MustrumRidcully]

Villz, on 08 September 2013 - 11:20 AM, said:

Never have i encountered a community so adamant in the fact actually hitting what you aim at in a FPS is a bad thing... lol

It's not a bad thing.

The problem is - who gets the most out of this?
The answer is: Boaters, particularly (heavier) ballistic and PPC boaters.

Convergence doesn't help you if you fire a bunch of SRMs and a medium laser. If you fire them together against a non-stationary target, one of the two will miss. That means you must aim and fire seperately. All convergence now does is ensure that each gun hits where you aim, but you aimed for each seperately, so only your own skill ensures that that point is the same the seocnd time as the first time. If you fire two identical weapons at once, you only need skill to aim your weapon once, not to aim it twice in a row (with different lead times, too) at the same spot.

And that's not all. Aiming takes a non-zero amount of time. SInce you aim twice now, you need twice that time. That means more time for the enemy to move, torso twist, shoot back. Less time you cannot spend moving away or torso twisting.
*

Convergence is fine - If you don't have group fire. Group FIre is fine - If you don't have convergence. Convergence and Group Fire would be fine - if all weapons had the same cooldown, projectile speed and behaviour (unless your targeting computer calculates lead and sutff like that), special snowflake mechanics and so on.

The particular nasty bit about convergence+group fire is - it creates a synergy effect. You can't balance synergy effects on a per weapon basis, you would always need some kind of meta rule that tracks how many of a a weapon you use and determine the right penalty for that (and you must also consider the special mechanics of a weapon, the synergy of 4 lasers with a 1 second duration firing is not the same as that of 4 PPCs).
If we didn't have that, we could just look at the weapon itself. "Okay, this one deals 20 damage in one blow, that's an advantage over a weapon that deals only 5 damage over a 1 second duration. So let's make it more expensive in build cost. Balancing on a per weapon basis is good. Balancing on a per build basis is headache in game with countless build possibilities.

Edit:
Regarding armour distribution vs convergence - that's actually not armour distribution vs convergence, but armour distribution vs mouse aim rather than random hit location table. And yeah, it is a known and previously discussed topic. I am not sure I like the internal armour solution so much - do we do it across the board? Then the problem still remains. If we don't do it across the board, then PGi will have to find a way to tweak this.
The easiest way might actually be to leave everything as is, but remove the max armor values per location, or at least loosen them up. TOtal max armor on a mech remains limited, but if you want to spend, say, up to 50 % on your CT, just do it. I suspect that after some time (a long time possibly) I would expect the meta to stabilize a bit - so that you can never be sure whether methodically disarming a mech is better than methodically coring them.


*And that's not all when it comes to boating (but that was all when it comes to convergenc). Only one type of weapon behavior. Same projectile speed, same beam duration, same cooldown, same special snowflake mechanic (lock-on, charge, whatever). Less mental effort required to operate your weapons. Easy Mode. Easy is always better then complicated when you try to fight, complicated means more mistakes, more things your plan can fail on.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 08 September 2013 - 12:49 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

I am not sure I like the internal armour solution so much - do we do it across the board?

I dont believe its necessary to do it across the board, just the center and side torsos.