22 replies to this topic

[Throe]

Suggestion: Increase all values for armor per ton/max armor, heat generation/heat cap/heat dissipation, and damage by a factor of 10(or even 100).

I realize the developers of MWO have been trying to stay true to the table top values and rules, which is a noble goal. It ensures a very good baseline for where to start with all of these values. The problem is that it allows too little space for balance.

But we're working with computers capable of performing complex mathematical equations thousands of times per second. Why are we using the exact values which were originally established to be easy for table top players to calculate on the fly with paper and pencil?

Going forward this suggestion gives the game play balance one critical thing:

Wiggle room. The number space to change the values by simple integer increments during balancing adjustments without resulting in odd fractions or wide swings in individual weapon performance.

This change will do nothing to change current damage/heat/armor mechanics, because they will all change at the same time. Server load increase should be marginal to non-existent, because the load on the servers comes from the number of calculations performed, and not the values of those calculations(at least, not until the value of those calculations changes by several more orders of magnitude beyond this).

This change has nearly no negative implication for the future either, because the subsequent increases to these values as more 'Mechs are added to the game is essentially none. Simply perform the same increase to any values added to the game before they are added, and continue to balance from there. There's no worry about the values becoming over-inflated later, because there is no level adjustment in this game.

Edited by Throet, 14 October 2013 - 03:40 PM.

[Roadbeer]

Armor was already doubled in CB,

But more importantly, WHY?

[Homeless Bill]

Multiplying everything by 100 does literally nothing aside from making them change a bunch of floats to integers. There's just no reason. Why? I just... I don't even....

Edit: After thinking about it a bit, I can sort of see a use for it for the front-end that's shown to the player. Decimals aren't fun for most people. But even then, I'm not a fan. Why would an AC/10 not do 10 damage? I think adding zeros is just a lot of time wasted by PGI.

Edited by Homeless Bill, 14 October 2013 - 04:48 PM.

[FupDup]

Homeless Bill, on 14 October 2013 - 03:43 PM, said:

Multiplying everything by 100 does literally nothing aside from making them change a bunch of floats to integers. There's just no reason. Why? I just... I don't even....

He was probably playing too much MWT (they used 10x armor and 10x damage).

[DoktorVivi]

Homeless Bill, on 14 October 2013 - 03:43 PM, said:

Multiplying everything by 100 does literally nothing aside from making them change a bunch of floats to integers. There's just no reason. Why? I just... I don't even....

So you can adjust the numbers for balance without going into decimals / fractions.

1015 vs. 10.15, etc.

[Homeless Bill]

DoktorVivi, on 14 October 2013 - 03:48 PM, said:

So you can adjust the numbers for balance without going into decimals / fractions.

1015 vs. 10.15, etc.

That's totally pointless.

1.58 in a text file is no different than 158. In fact, most game programmers I've worked with are much happier working with floats that correlate to real things than integers that pretend to.

Example: Why not send the time between frames in microseconds in integer form? Because it's ******* stupid. Position = Position + Velocity * Time wouldn't work anymore. You'd have to divide Time correctly anyways.

As a game developer, I vote no, no, and no.

[Redshift2k5]

His point is so they can fine-tine damage/armor/etc versus values which would be fractions of a single point of damage.

Mechwarrior Tactics already does this; values are inflated 10x to allow room for tuning in what would otherwise be post-decimal values.



Here's an AC10. It does 123 damage, which I think looks better than 12.3 would.

Edited by Redshift2k5, 14 October 2013 - 03:53 PM.

[Sandpit]

......... uhm ok...... I just don't understand it. Why do people consistently post "make this change" and give absolutely no reasons as to how and why this would improve the game......

[Throe]

Sandpit, on 14 October 2013 - 04:16 PM, said:

......... uhm ok...... I just don't understand it. Why do people consistently post "make this change" and give absolutely no reasons as to how and why this would improve the game......

In and of itself, this change does nothing to change the game, at all. It's almost purely cosmetic. For the matter of that, after they add UI 2.0, I think it can be purely cosmetic. But the fact remains they're staying true to table top values originally established to make it easy for players to use on the fly during a table top game, and we have access to computers which would have literally *no* trouble with a small change in the magnitude of the values.

But again, this gives them the number space to make smaller changes to balance weapons going forward.

Homeless Bill, for the record, I still think they should've gone with your targeting computer stress idea instead of ghost heat. The simple fact that pilots can target a specific point on an enemy with all their weapons means a complete departure from table top rules, where hit locations are determined randomly, limiting the practical effectiveness of an alpha strike. Something ghost heat simply doesn't address.

[PEEFsmash]

Homeless Bill, on 14 October 2013 - 03:43 PM, said:

Multiplying everything by 100 does literally nothing aside from making them change a bunch of floats to integers. There's just no reason. Why? I just... I don't even....

I want to play 2 hour long games of stand and shoot at the same damn mech.

[Homeless Bill]

PEEFsmash, on 14 October 2013 - 04:45 PM, said:

I want to play 2 hour long games of stand and shoot at the same damn mech.

That's the best part. He's not talking about JUST multiplying armor. He's also talking about multiplying damage. And everything else. So it literally does nothing except make life ****** for coders. Just... just no.

Edited by Homeless Bill, 14 October 2013 - 04:46 PM.

[Roland]

The idea that this would help because it gives more room for tuning is nonsensical, because we already have fractional damage values. There is not currently any limitation on the tunability of damage.

[Wispsy]

I like it! People who care about big numbers will feel like they are doing a lot. Lots of casuals will feel more satisfied with their performance.


Not sarcasm...just seeing bigger numbers often makes people happier in games like this.

Edited by Wispsy, 14 October 2013 - 04:49 PM.

[Artgathan]

Redshift2k5, on 14 October 2013 - 03:51 PM, said:

Here's an AC10. It does 123 damage, which I think looks better than 12.3 would.

Err, that AC/10 does 100 damage. The 123 is how many matchmaking points that this particular AC/10 is worth.

There are other AC/10s in MW:Tactics that do more than 100 damage though.

[Homeless Bill]

Throet, on 14 October 2013 - 04:42 PM, said:

But again, this gives them the number space to make smaller changes to balance weapons going forward.

Homeless Bill, for the record, I still think they should've gone with your targeting computer stress idea instead of ghost heat. The simple fact that pilots can target a specific point on an enemy with all their weapons means a complete departure from table top rules, where hit locations are determined randomly, limiting the practical effectiveness of an alpha strike. Something ghost heat simply doesn't address.

That I think is a misunderstanding. They're more than capable of changing 1.5 to 1.5001. They do wild balance swings by choice - not because they're forced to. I'd like to see less wild swings, but that's something Paul and whoever else tweaks the numbers is in charge of. As a coder, I just see it causing a lot of needless headaches.

Meh. It was fun to argue. I wish I could mod the game just to see what it would play like, but alas we will never know just how ****** my idea would be in practice =P

[Farix]

This does nothing and ultimately complicates the Devs work instead of making it simpler. Too much work for absolutely no gain.

[Alistair Winter]

I don't think it's an urgent matter, but I do see where TS is coming from. On the other hand, it's also kind of neat that the AC20 does 20 damage and the AC5 does 5 damage.

[Cest7]

You could code an algorithm to assess the stats and curb the damage of the FOTM weapons... but what would this accomplish? All weapons doing 1 dps...

I don't see increasing a weapon by .05 compared to .1 making that much of a difference...

[Kazairl]

It would have made sense at the start to do it. But retrospectively shifting the entire game... imagine the bugs.

[MustrumRidcully]

Great idea. As long as they don't tweak the C-Bills per damage point rewards.