408 replies to this topic

[Galenit]

Lupus Aurelius, on 30 October 2013 - 12:49 PM, said:

Ballistics fire on average 1.33 times faster with an average of 1.26 times more damage, than energy weapons. If you ratio the differences to bring them in line, in the 2.36 average firing time, energy weapons average 4.76 damage, vs 8.39 of ballistics. Thats half the damage in the same amount of time, on average.

Ballistics need to be balanced with other weapon systems. More heat and slower firing times to bring them back more in line with BT precedence. A quick fix would be to bring things back to the same relative values in TT.

MUSTRUMRIDCULLY's Weapon Balance Thread:http://mwomercs.com/...78#entry2829078

You missed that ballistics have 3x range, energy 2x range and missiles only 1x range, this makes it even more unbalanced.

With only 2x range, the ac2, gauss, erll and erppc and lrm (if they would hit at 1000m and not at 1000-arc) would be the only weapons that do noticeable damage at 1000m.
But with the 3x range there are the ac5, uac5 and ac 10 doing damage at this ranges too.

And the ac20 does a lot at ranges it should do less or 0 damage.

Another point that balances ballistics in tt is ammoexplosion, but with only 10% chance, its nearly not noteable, removing another disadvantage.

Edited by Galenit, 31 October 2013 - 06:26 AM.

[General Taskeen]

Stelar 7, on 31 October 2013 - 06:15 AM, said:

If you don't think the damage will spread why ask for a new mechanic with no effect?

Well, the desired "effect" is to reduce the "all damage at once" mechanic. In practice, that is different, especially against moving targets or those twisting to avoid damage. Of course, someone sitting still is going to receive all shells in the same spot.

Copy/Pasting TT Damage/Heat into a real-time game does not work the desired way some people might want it to. What we have is an "illusion" that everything is all fine in MWO, when really its a system of core problems with a domino effect from that attempt at taking straight values out of TT.

For an example of an AC that shoots with the damage spread out, here is what I'm talking about what it 'could' look like:

example

Edited by General Taskeen, 31 October 2013 - 06:28 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Stelar 7, on 31 October 2013 - 06:02 AM, said:

It is not that it is hard to understand, it is that it is nonsense. You are continuing to perpetuate the myth, both that TT weapons timing was a cannon hard limit, or balanced, and that DPS is the stat that best measures a weapons effectiveness. Both those ideas are {Scrap}, is that so hard to understand?

That is not a myth. That is exactly what the table top rules say happens. And those are the ones that determine what Battletech is, because Battletech is a table top game first and foremost.

The table top rules say that it is not possible to deal more than 5 damage with a single medium laser in a turn.
That doesn't strictly require it to deal damage only in 5 damage steps. But there is not a single rule that would allow the ML to deal more damage than that. That's the max limit set by the "simulation". If your simulation presents another max limit, you'll better really know why you're doing this and how this affects overall balance.

I am not arguing that the table top system picked the best values for balance. But if you want to change the value, you better give me why your change makes things for the better. And if I walk through the math and tell that it doesn't improve things, you better show me where I am wrong and what is a better model. If you don't, we can't have a meaningful discussion.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 31 October 2013 - 06:29 AM.

[Komagn]

I agree that ballistic weapons in this game fire too fast compared to energy weapons (flamers don't count).

[Nunspa]

Roland, on 30 October 2013 - 03:21 PM, said:

People also tend to ignore the fact that ballistics require ammo, and ammo can explode and kill your mech.

But that would require.... logic and stuff

Komagn, on 31 October 2013 - 06:31 AM, said:

I agree that ballistic weapons in this game fire too fast compared to energy weapons (flamers don't count).

Give me more ammo per ton and I would agree....

I have to use 5 to 6 tons for ammo on some of my builds, which allows you to stock more DDH or more weapons for a bigger Alpha...

[Komagn]

Nunspa, on 31 October 2013 - 06:34 AM, said:

But that would require.... logic and stuff



Give me more ammo per ton and I would agree....

I have to use 5 to 6 tons for ammo on some of my builds, which allows you to stock more DDH or more weapons for a bigger Alpha...

If ballistics fired slower, then you don't need that extra ammo do you. Also, all that extra ammo might explode and kill you.

Edited by Komagn, 31 October 2013 - 06:36 AM.

[Roland]

General Taskeen, on 31 October 2013 - 06:10 AM, said:

You wouldn't, but I would.

Tell me again how an AC/20 spread out with 4 bullets, doing 5 damage each would be terrible? Do you have evidence? I'd like to see it if possible.

Well, you could look at the UAC's that existed in MW4, which almost no one ever used. They fired a doubleshot of shells, making it very difficult to land both of them.

So in those case, you'd actually have two 20 damage shells going out there.. but folks still very rarely ever used it in league play, because it was too unreliable and hard to use compared to the single shot LBX.

In MWO, compare what you describe to an alternative... 4 medium lasers. Why would someone use the AC20 which spreads its damage out just like the medium lasers, but at such a huge premium cost of tonnage and slots? Answer: They wouldn't.

Even in Battletech, the whole purpose of the AC20 was that it dumped 20 damage on a single component. That's what made it so devastating, because if you happened to hit the cockpit of a mech with it, it was an auto kill. Only it and Gauss could really do that. If you take away it's single damage punch, you basically make the weapon useless.

Quote

If you didn't notice yet, a UAC/5 in this game shoots 2 shells. Granted, it should be doing 2x3.5 instead, but you get the picture. The shells land practically on top of each other, rather than "spread around."

What are you talking about? Are you suggesting that the UAC5 is actually firing two rounds in MWO? What's your source for this? I've never seen a single UAC shot spread any damage, even on fast moving lights.

[mike29tw]

Roland, on 31 October 2013 - 06:38 AM, said:

In MWO, compare what you describe to an alternative... 4 medium lasers. Why would someone use the AC20 which spreads its damage out just like the medium lasers, but at such a huge premium cost of tonnage and slots? Answer: They wouldn't.

Because AC20 deals at least 5 damage to each single component, while 4 medium lasers could spread everywhere all over your mech?

Edit - the pin-point nature of AC20 is still there, it's just been reduced to 5 damage each shell.

Edited by mike29tw, 31 October 2013 - 06:45 AM.

[Galenit]

General Taskeen, on 31 October 2013 - 06:26 AM, said:

Copy/Pasting TT Damage/Heat into a real-time game does not work the desired way some people might want it to. What we have is an "illusion" that everything is all fine in MWO, when really its a system of core problems with a domino effect from that attempt at taking straight values out of TT.

You need to translate it.
DPS, heatdissipation per second and other things are needed to translate from turnbased into a realtime game.

But translating it to 2,5 times, 4 times and 19 times the firerates, giving it 1x, 2x or 3x the range, reducing disadvantages from 100% to 10% shuffels balance a lot.
There is no consistency in the translation the devs have done.

[Tombstoner]

One thing people also forget when looking at changes in fire rates is that PGI left the damage values the same. This effectively doubles damage output. 2.5 to be exact. it also doubled heat. The correct way to scale changes in fire rate is to lower damage values by the same proportion you increase fire rate. same for heat. This preserves the intra weapon balance. then make heat and damage changes.

Example
weapon damage/heat fire rate(s)
ppc 10/10 10
ppc 10/10 4 becomes a 2.5X damage increase. this addressed the lack of pwe pwe in closed beta but trashes armor.
The correct way
ppc 4/4 4 same damage output/heat just with more shots. the relation ship to armor protection is not altered

PGI fubared the whole system by doing this. setting themselves up for a nightmare situation of balance issues. then next thing was to double armor but weapons are still doing more damage then in TT. lowering TTK. this is ok but the change to skill based targeting doesn't take into account interactions between mech armor, model size, shape, hard point location and its speed.

This is why some mechs are DOA like the awesome. art affects survivability. without a system to correct for that, looking as just weapon stats has very limited utility. the whole system needs to be redesigned to allow for true balance to occur... unless of course a subjective balance is acceptable verses one provided by Math and Science.

Edited by Tombstoner, 31 October 2013 - 06:55 AM.

[Stelar 7]

MustrumRidcully, on 31 October 2013 - 06:27 AM, said:

That is not a myth. That is exactly what the table top rules say happens. And those are the ones that determine what Battletech is, because Battletech is a table top game first and foremost.

The table top rules say that it is not possible to deal more than 5 damage with a single medium laser in a turn.
That doesn't strictly require it to deal damage only in 5 damage steps. But there is not a single rule that would allow the ML to deal more damage than that. That's the max limit set by the "simulation". If your simulation presents another max limit, you'll better really know why you're doing this and how this affects overall balance.

I am not arguing that the table top system picked the best values for balance. But if you want to change the value, you better give me why your change makes things for the better. And if I walk through the math and tell that it doesn't improve things, you better show me where I am wrong and what is a better model. If you don't, we can't have a meaningful discussion.

Sure you are, because you keep coming back to it and keep using it's values in your numbers. I've pointed out previously that the Solaris 7 game, also table top, also Battletech, had medium lasers, and several other weapons, firing faster than the classic TT limit. Battleforce slower than the classic TT limit. You are picking and choosing which 'Cannon' weapon values you are allowing and making no MWO game value suggestions for why we should pick one set over the others, other than 'because TT'.

Aerotech let Medium Lasers fire many kilometers I doubt you'd want to introduce those tabletop mechanics. (Yes the aerospace fighter m laser was identical to the battlemech one, just shot further, by a lot.)

Basically the values in MWO are the current null hypothesis, if you want to change them you need to give a good reason why and 'because TT' is not a good reason.

[Khobai]

Quote

One thing people also forget when looking at changes in fire rates is that PGI left the damage values the same. This effectively doubles damage output. 2.5 to be exact. it also doubled heat

Rate of fire is arbitary though. You could say a Battletech turn is 10 seconds, or 5 seconds, or 1 hour, or 3 days. It doesnt matter.

Where PGI screwed up isnt by changing the rate of fire. Where they screwed up was in making the rate of fire different from the rate of cooling. Weapons fire three times faster but cooling is at the same 10s rate as TT. The result is that heat generation is effectively tripled which fundamentally changes the balance of weapons.

In actuality, what PGI shouldve done, was allow us to have heat neutral mechs and then tweaked armor/damage values so convergence was no longer a problem. Weapons/armor did not have to use the same values as tabletop. And in fact that was one of the worst design decisions made. Even the other mechwarrior games didnt fall into that trap.

Edited by Khobai, 31 October 2013 - 07:07 AM.

[Galenit]

Tombstoner, on 31 October 2013 - 06:51 AM, said:

This effectively doubles damage output. 2.5 to be exact.

Not exact 2,5 (only for 4 second cooldown weapons, we have 5 of them),overall its from 2,1 to 19,2 times to be exact.
Like the ranges are changed from 1x (missile) over 2x (energy) up to 3x (ballistic).

Most improved firerates are on ballistics, highest range increase are on ballistics too.

[Roland]

mike29tw, on 31 October 2013 - 06:43 AM, said:

Because AC20 deals at least 5 damage to each single component, while 4 medium lasers could spread everywhere all over your mech?

Edit - the pin-point nature of AC20 is still there, it's just been reduced to 5 damage each shell.

No, you aren't thinking it through.

If you have 4 medium lasers, then that means they are going to do 5 damage ALMOST INSTANTLY to a target anyway. They are each doing 5 damage, spread over 1 second. That means that 4 medium lasers will do 5 damage in less than a third of a second anyway. They'll spread the whole 20 points around over the duration of the second, but in order to achieve only the 5 damage from your silly spread out AC20 idea, they only need to be on the target for a fraction of a second.

And this is to be expected. You are basically suggesting that we turn the AC20 into the equivalent of 4 medium lasers. You want to spread that damage out over some period of time, like a second.. which means that it's going to basically do the same thing as the medium laser array, only in discrete steps. But since the overall period we're talking here is only a single second, the difference between discreet steps and a linear transition is effectively nil.

[Khobai]

Quote

You are basically suggesting that we turn the AC20 into the equivalent of 4 medium lasers.

Which makes no sense because it weights 14 tons plus another 4 tons for ammo. And the lasers are 4 tons and dont even use ammo. The AC/20 should rightfully be better.

[mike29tw]

Roland, on 31 October 2013 - 07:07 AM, said:

No, you aren't thinking it through.

If you have 4 medium lasers, then that means they are going to do 5 damage ALMOST INSTANTLY to a target anyway. They are each doing 5 damage, spread over 1 second. That means that 4 medium lasers will do 5 damage in less than a third of a second anyway. They'll spread the whole 20 points around over the duration of the second, but in order to achieve only the 5 damage from your silly spread out AC20 idea, they only need to be on the target for a fraction of a second.

And this is to be expected. You are basically suggesting that we turn the AC20 into the equivalent of 4 medium lasers. You want to spread that damage out over some period of time, like a second.. which means that it's going to basically do the same thing as the medium laser array, only in discrete steps. But since the overall period we're talking here is only a single second, the difference between discreet steps and a linear transition is effectively nil.

The goal of burst-fire AC is to eliminate pin-point damage. Of course it won't be balanced right away, but if we tweak the system under the premise that AC is dealing spread out damage just like lasers, the end result will be a lot more preferable than what we have now. For instance, maybe AC20 will discharge 4 shells under 0.5 sec rather than 1 sec, making it more powerful under brawling situations than 4 medium lasers.

Remember, lasers spreading damage over one sec period is the best decision PGI has ever made. That's part of the reason why ML and LL are the most balanced weapon in the game(except when you exceed the ghost heat limit lol). Why not do the same to ballistics?

Edited by mike29tw, 31 October 2013 - 07:19 AM.

[Davers]

I'm not going to throw around any math here, but I feel that ACs in general fire too quickly and have too much ammo per ton. It is very easy to make a heat manageable ballistic build and never have to worry about secondary weapons.

[Joseph Mallan]

mike29tw, on 31 October 2013 - 07:19 AM, said:

The goal of burst-fire AC is to eliminate pin-point damage. Of course it won't be balanced right away, but if we tweak the system under the premise that AC is dealing spread out damage just like lasers, the end result will be a lot more preferable than what we have now. For instance, maybe AC20 will discharge 4 shells under 0.5 sec rather than 1 sec, making it more powerful under brawling situations than 4 medium lasers.

Remember, lasers spreading damage over one sec period is the best decision PGI has ever made. That's part of the reason why ML and LL are the most balanced weapon in the game(except when you exceed the ghost heat limit lol). Why not do the same to ballistics?

Then I don't want this.
Lasers- Time on Target is the rule.
Missiles- Sand blasting damage
Ballistics- All or nothing damage per round fired.

More choice is better if I remember correctly!?!

[MustrumRidcully]

Joseph Mallan, on 31 October 2013 - 07:23 AM, said:

Then I don't want this.
Lasers- Time on Target is the rule.
Missiles- Sand blasting damage
Ballistics- All or nothing damage per round fired.

More choice is better if I remember correctly!?!

Sometimes.Choices need to be meaningful.
You may choose between:
- Death by Hanging
- Death by Electrocution
- Death by Poison
- Death by Decapitation
- 1,000,000 €

[Galenit]

Khobai, on 31 October 2013 - 07:10 AM, said:

Which makes no sense because it weights 14 tons plus another 4 tons for ammo. And the lasers are 4 tons and dont even use ammo. The AC/20 should rightfully be better.

Lets look at them in a heatneutral build, i will use dhs to compare. (Thats -2 heat/sec for 10x engine dhs + -0.14 for every other dhs.)

4x ML 1x AC20
DPS 6.68 5
HPS 5.56 1.5
Range 270/540 270/810
Range for 50% damage 405 540

DHS needed for neutral 25 -3.5
Ammo needed 0 4
Weight 4 14
Slots with ammo+cooling 4+25 10+4
Weight with cooling+ammo 29 18

Its rightfull better in the moment looking at the numbers.
Should we put pinpoint/spreading damage in the comparsion?

(edit, why does the forum count the spaces? looks better in the edit view then posted....)

Joseph Mallan, on 31 October 2013 - 07:23 AM, said:

Then I don't want this.
Lasers- Time on Target is the rule.
Missiles- Sand blasting damage
Ballistics- All or nothing damage per round fired.

More choice is better if I remember correctly!?!

Sure, its the best for a game.

But in the moment you have to choose between:

1x range, around 2,5 times the tt damage
2x range, around 3 times the tt damage
or
3x range and around 4 times the tt damage.

Edited by Galenit, 31 October 2013 - 07:32 AM.