116 replies to this topic

[Joseph Mallan]

stjobe, on 13 December 2013 - 09:26 AM, said:

Ideally (for me, I appreciate not everyone shares this ideal) ACs would be made burst-fire and the PPCs beam-weapons, and THEN we would balance them all out so that there are actual choices to be made in what weapon to go with.

I just don't think MWO can handle instant-damage weapons. The armour location system wasn't built with that in mind, and it's showing the cracks already with the doubled armour values and very low TTK. That's one of the reasons I advocate burst-fire ACs.

There is a choice though. Do I take the high caliber thumper and for go sustain able damage, or go with a smaller caliber and more sustainable damage. It is a very important choice.

Like do I use twin light blades or a Great Sword! Both get the job done, one looks cooler(whirling Dervish) the other looks more impressive(Meat Cleaver). The wise player finds that good balance for themselves!

[St4LkeRxF]

Buff SRM flight speed, keep damage as it is and reduce heat they produce, leave that for at least full month to see how it work and if need do some tweaks.

ACs seem to be OP at the moment as we don't have good effective close range weapon, 3 x UAC5 were deadly back in the days but back in the days SRM were good enough to counter UAC5 and now SRM are hit or miss = not reliable.

Fix what is broken no need to nerf weapons that work and things should clear up.

[Prezimonto]

aniviron, on 12 December 2013 - 06:59 PM, said:

To add icing onto the "don't worry about ammo explosions" cake, ammo bins only have a 10% chance of exploding when shot critically anyway, which again, makes it not worth going for your opponent's ammo. Why go for something that gives you a 10% chance of crippling or killing (assuming that the ammo hasn't been shot already) when you can just shoot the CT for a 100% kill chance.

WTF? I thought they had a 90% chance to go up in a ball of flame when the get destroyed.

No wonder no one cares. Make ammo actually explode... lower it's HP and increase the % chance to blow up, and I might even be okay with the current AC heavy game... good weapons with a real drawback OR pay for CASE in your build to contain the damage (too bad prevalence of XL engines makes CASE a joke anyway if ammo barely ever explodes.

[Joseph Mallan]

stjobe, on 13 December 2013 - 09:33 AM, said:

BattleTech - the word doesn't conjure images of fast-paced instant-death, does it? For me at least, it conjures images of ponderous, lumbering war machines, slowly chipping away at each other with massive fire-power and massive amounts of armour, until one finally falls, and the victor slowly hobbles away in his all-but-destroyed 'mech.

I want a higher TTK.

It sure does to me! Triple Gauss wielding Thunder Hawks, Ponderous Mjolinars, Sky darkening Kraken 3s, Those are insta kill mechs and just a few.

I want less TTK.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 13 December 2013 - 09:39 AM.

[Tombstoner]

stjobe, on 13 December 2013 - 09:33 AM, said:

BattleTech - the word doesn't conjure images of fast-paced instant-death, does it? For me at least, it conjures images of ponderous, lumbering war machines, slowly chipping away at each other with massive fire-power and massive amounts of armour, until one finally falls, and the victor slowly hobbles away in his all-but-destroyed 'mech.

I want a higher TTK.

I agree and when rear armor shots present themselves from superior positioning due to good menuvering and team work, lots of fun is made. as it is on all my assaults i only have 8-10 point of armor on the rear because historically i die from a cored CT.

[Joseph Mallan]

Prezimonto, on 13 December 2013 - 09:34 AM, said:

WTF? I thought they had a 90% chance to go up in a ball of flame when the get destroyed.

No wonder no one cares. Make ammo actually explode... lower it's HP and increase the % chance to blow up, and I might even be okay with the current AC heavy game... good weapons with a real drawback OR pay for CASE in your build to contain the damage (too bad prevalence of XL engines makes CASE a joke anyway if ammo barely ever explodes.

I agree with this! Make my Ammo a point of worry! If I'm willing to bring it in mass I need to be made to accept the consequences!

[Prezimonto]

Making ammo explode commonly would also directly buff crit-seeking weapons... .which aren't in a good place under most conditions.

[Joseph Mallan]

Prezimonto, on 13 December 2013 - 09:44 AM, said:

Making ammo explode commonly would also directly buff crit-seeking weapons... .which aren't in a good place under most conditions.

I have ha a few discussions around the horn about Crits in this game. Crits were/are one offs on TT. Your Gauss takes a crit once, BOOM. Ammo hit once, BOOM, I have no fear carrying 5+ tons of LRM/AC ammo and 3+ tons of SRM ammo. Heck I used to have 11 tons of LRM ammo in my Atlas (Archer) There is no consequence for being a walking ammo can!

[Doctor Proctor]

Here's an easy experiment that all of you can do to look at what kind of "skill" is required for a weapon...or at least how much damage potential it has at your current skill level. Go and look at your Profile > Stats > Weapon Stats and compare different weapons to see how you do with them. If you take your total damage for that weapon and then divide by the number of hits, you will get your average damage every time you're hitting with that weapon.

Weapon DPS Calculations Below

Spoiler

Energy Weapons
SL: 3 Damage at Optimal Range
Average Damage Per Hit: 1.62
Accuracy: 59.80%
DPS: (1.62 / (2.25 cycle + .75 burn time)) * 59.80% = 0.32 actual DPS

ML: 5 Damage at Optimal Range
Average Damage Per Hit: 2.84
Accuracy: 77.07%
DPS: (2.84 / (3 cycle + 1 burn time)) * 77.07% = 0.55 actual DPS

LL: 9 Damage at Optimal Range
Average Damage Per Hit: 5.15
Accuracy: 79.40%
DPS: (5.15 / (3.25 cycle + 1 burn time)) * 79.40% = 0.96 actual DPS

PPC: 10 Damage at Optimal Range
Average Damage Per Hit: 9.32
Accuracy: 53.63%
DPS: (9.32 / 4 cycle) * 53.63% = 1.25 actual DPS

Ballistic Weapons
AC/2: 2 Damage at Optimal Range
Average Damage Per Hit: 2.06 (Higher than optimal damage...perhaps because of crits?)
Accuracy: 60.38%
DPS: (2.06 / 0.52 cycle) * 60.38% = 2.39 actual DPS

AC/5: 5 Damage at Optimal Range
Average Damage Per Hit: 5.31 (Higher than optimal damage...perhaps because of crits?)
Accuracy: 60.77%
DPS: (5.31 / 1.5 cycle) * 60.77%= 2.15 actual DPS

AC/10: 10 Damage at Optimal Range
Average Damage Per Hit: 10.09 (Higher than optimal damage...perhaps because of crits?)
Accuracy: 61.91%
DPS: (10.09 / 2.5 cycle) * 61.91% = 2.50 actual DPS

AC/20: 20 Damage at Optimal Range
Average Damage Per Hit: 19.61
Accuracy: 63.37%
DPS: (19.61 / 4 cycle) * 63.37% = 3.11 actual DPS

LB-10X: 1 Per Pellet (10x per volley) at Optimal Range
Average Damage Per Hit: 7.48
Accuracy: 80.67%
DPS: (7.48 / 2.5 cycle) * 80.67% = 2.41 actual DPS

See the problem here? While my accuracy is higher with lasers, this is due in part to the fact that any time the beam touches an enemy it's counted as a hit, even if you only hit them for 10% of the beam duration. This is why, despite the higher accuracy, the damage per hit is close to 50-60% of the optimal damage for the weapon.

Ballistic weapons, on the other hand, are frequently doing higher than their listed damage, likely due to crits adding a bit to the damage values. The exception to this is the LBX and the AC/20 here, which the AC/20 doing just barely less than it's listed damage and the LBX doing about 75% of it's total damage, likely due to not all the pellets striking the target.

The really odd, but predictably so, weapon is the PPC. While technically an energy weapon, it's front loaded damage model is more like a ballistic's, and it's damage values bear this out. At 9.32 damage per hit it blows every other energy weapon out of the water, and only just barely falls short of the performance of ballistics when it comes to percentage of optimal damage dealt. This may be due to taking riskier shots due to not having an ammo limitation, or perhaps it could be due to the 2x optimal damage falloff model of energy weapons as opposed to the 3x optimal damage falloff model of ballistics. It's hard to say.

Basically though, the math is pretty clear here. Lasers require incredible skill to maintain their targets and get anything close to maximum damage on a target. Ballistics (and PPC's, due to their behavior) will easily come close to, or exceed, their optimal damage values when used with a similar skill.

This gets even worse when you look at the actual DPS number, which you can get by dividing the average damage by the cycle time (plus burn time in the case of lasers) [Edit: Then multiply by accuracy to account for missed shots]. All three of the primary laser weapons have actual DPS values below 1, whereas most of the AC weapons hover right between about 2 - 3 DPS depending on the weapon platform. So, while yes, AC's have increased tonnage and ammo requirements, they do several times the DPS of laser weapons at much longer ranges with shorter cycle times. Is it any wonder that they're showing up so frequently right now?

Edit: Fixed calculation error where I did not account for accuracy in DPS values. Also enclosed the math in spoiler tags to shorten length of post.

Edited by Doctor Proctor, 13 December 2013 - 12:01 PM.

[Tombstoner]

Doctor Proctor, on 13 December 2013 - 10:18 AM, said:

Basically though, the math is pretty clear here. Lasers require incredible skill to maintain their targets and get anything close to maximum damage on a target. Ballistics (and PPC's, due to their behavior) will easily come close to, or exceed, their optimal damage values when used with a similar skill.

laser damage is taken as a whole to hitting lights to assaults if you pars the data based on target size you would get very different values..... its much easier to hit an atlas with lasers then a commando. lasers/ac/skill needed cant be discussed without target size being part of the data.

[MustrumRidcully]

That's why turning ballistics and PPCs into burst fire weapons or at least weapons that cannot be group-fired is my preferred solution. We probably don't really need to change anything about convergence, ammo consumption and so on.

I still think it would be a good idea to standardize cycle rates of weapons in 2-4 standard categories so that mixing weapons becomes easier by allowing every build to have a memorable rotation. That's basically a Quality of Life adjustment.
And of course, the heat system is still borked then, but we're getting a better basis for further changes.

[Almond Brown]

MeiSooHaityu, on 13 December 2013 - 04:22 AM, said:

I don't know.

I suppose A/C weapons (due to instant pin-point damage) are good at applying damage to an area, but it is an "all or nothing" weapon. If you miss, you apply no damage.

Tripple A/C2s are actually a bit difficult to use. I do get good damage with them, but they are hard to maintain RoF on a target and have each shot hit. It is easier for me in a lighter mech (Shad or Hunch), but 3 in a Victor arm is almost impossible for me to use properly.

An energy weapon (well lasers anyway) will apply damage spread out over the entire duration. Even if you miss, you can sweep the beam back on target and apply SOME damage.

Seems to me like energy weapons are easier to use, but A/C weapons (projectile weapons really) reward better aim. Really, it sounds opposite of the point the OP is making.

Difficult to test but it might be very interesting to see if an 2 x AC10 vs an 2 x LL at max.(optimal 449m) range who would be able to apply a set value of damage to the other target. Full movement allowed, just need the range to be maintained outside 450m.

P.S. Rules, JM6-DD chassis used for both Mech builds. A 250 STD Engine (10HS's) (DHS\ES optional) The LL Mech has been equipped with an additional 4 x MG for when and IF the Ballistic unit runs out of ammo, then they get to be finished off by a Ballistic weapon. No running away.

Edited by Almond Brown, 13 December 2013 - 11:06 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

MustrumRidcully, on 13 December 2013 - 10:27 AM, said:

That's why turning ballistics and PPCs into burst fire weapons or at least weapons that cannot be group-fired is my preferred solution. We probably don't really need to change anything about convergence, ammo consumption and so on.

I still think it would be a good idea to standardize cycle rates of weapons in 2-4 standard categories so that mixing weapons becomes easier by allowing every build to have a memorable rotation. That's basically a Quality of Life adjustment.
And of course, the heat system is still borked then, but we're getting a better basis for further changes.

This I can agree to Must. Convergence is the big game breaker.

Doc, The point is Lasers are hitting more often, thus putting more damage on than is shown in DpS. Once again making weapons weaker is the wrong way. Shorten the Lasers beam duration by half to increase the DpS of energy weapons! That is a better solution to me than Nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf! Hit our weapons with the Buff bat instead.

[Doctor Proctor]

Tombstoner, on 13 December 2013 - 10:27 AM, said:

laser damage is taken as a whole to hitting lights to assaults if you pars the data based on target size you would get very different values..... its much easier to hit an atlas with lasers then a commando. lasers/ac/skill needed cant be discussed without target size being part of the data.

That doesn't really matter all that much here actually due to just the sheer disparity between the numbers. You telling me that if I cut out all the Light mechs that suddenly my average damage per shot on a ML is going to jump to almost double what it is now? Because unless it does, then it's actual damage values will still fall short of it's optimal values, which gives it a comparative disadvantage to ballistics because they perform very close to, or even exceed their optimal values. It's like saying you can't be sure if the sports car really is faster than the go kart unless they're on the same street, since there could be different bumps or pavement conditions.

[Doctor Proctor]

Joseph Mallan, on 13 December 2013 - 10:53 AM, said:

This I can agree to Must. Convergence is the big game breaker.

Doc, The point is Lasers are hitting more often, thus putting more damage on than is shown in DpS. Once again making weapons weaker is the wrong way. Shorten the Lasers beam duration by half to increase the DpS of energy weapons! That is a better solution to me than Nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf! Hit our weapons with the Buff bat instead.

That frankly doesn't make sense. I've taken the actual total damage divided by the number of hits to get an average damage. Then that average damage is divided by the cycle time of the weapon plus it's burn time. This gives you an average DPS for that weapon. Them "hitting more" doesn't somehow increase that damage as this is already taken into account by the fact that I based everything off actual damage dealt on a hit.

That's why it's labeled "Actual DPS" as opposed to theoretical. If it were theoretical, then the lasers would all be doing at least double the DPS that they current are. Basically, in a real world model, the increased "accuracy" of lasers is merely a large number of small damage hits due to either not getting the full burn time or lost damage from firing beyond optimal range. Ballistics don't have the first problem (the LBX has a similar issue with missed pellets, which is why it has the lowest relative damage values for ballistic weapons) and the second one is vastly reduced due to the 3x optimal damage falloff model. The only one that seems to have been significantly affected by it is the AC/20, which not coincidentally has the shortest range of all of them.

[Bhael Fire]

Energy weapons do not require skill to use....at least no more than ballistics.

You are almost guaranteed a hit whenever you pull the trigger...unlike a ballistic weapon, which requires some leading, accuracy and good timing to land a shot against a moving target.

Energy weapons are "low contrast" weapons; that is, the are not as hit or miss like ballistics...you are pretty much going to automatically inflict damage on your target. The better your aim, the more damage you will cause. So if you're a crappy shot, you can still manage to damage your enemy no matter what.

Ballistic weapons are "high contrast" weapons; that is, you either do full damage or no damage. If you are not very good at aiming, your mileage with them will vary.

These two dynamics balance each other out.

[Almond Brown]

Whether a provable hypothesis, it appears the issue with Ballistics's that the game is played mostly, well inside the Optimal ranges of most weapons. As the range increases, even with the AC20, who get 50% damage (AC10) out to 539m, the average damage applied will decrease. An AC2 (x 3) is a nightmare at AC20 ranges as well but with added recycle times, it shines light a supernova. The AC5 and AC10 likewise.

Lasers on the other hand retain there relative effectiveness because applying full damage is more dependent on the movement scheme of the enemy x the shooters movements at most optimal ranges. It is hard to full burn any laser at even half it optimal vs the ballistic whose average damage increases with decrease to range.

So how do we get the disparity between a burn time (DOT) weapon such that the damage profile increases, within their optimal ranges and < for Energy(lasers) while decreasing the over-all damage averages of the Ballistics as their ranges decrease?

Would it be possible for a Ballistic weapon to have a speed that increase over distance? So in close it travels slower than it does as the range increases? likely new player unfriendly though).

P.S. The point is, Ballistics stay at level or even get better as the fighting ranges decrease, Energy does not. But both have equivalent damage Drop offs and vastly differing range brackets????

Edited by Almond Brown, 13 December 2013 - 11:23 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Doctor Proctor, on 13 December 2013 - 11:05 AM, said:

That frankly doesn't make sense. I've taken the actual total damage divided by the number of hits to get an average damage. Then that average damage is divided by the cycle time of the weapon plus it's burn time. This gives you an average DPS for that weapon. Them "hitting more" doesn't somehow increase that damage as this is already taken into account by the fact that I based everything off actual damage dealt on a hit.

That's why it's labeled "Actual DPS" as opposed to theoretical. If it were theoretical, then the lasers would all be doing at least double the DPS that they current are. Basically, in a real world model, the increased "accuracy" of lasers is merely a large number of small damage hits due to either not getting the full burn time or lost damage from firing beyond optimal range. Ballistics don't have the first problem (the LBX has a similar issue with missed pellets, which is why it has the lowest relative damage values for ballistic weapons) and the second one is vastly reduced due to the 3x optimal damage falloff model. The only one that seems to have been significantly affected by it is the AC/20, which not coincidentally has the shortest range of all of them.

See an AC doesn't do its damage over time (DpS) It does it in one quick shot every 1.52-4.0 seconds A Laser has to do it by hitting ans staying on target over time. Thats where the difference is, I miss with my AC I get no damage till I hit again. So my AC20 hiting 55% of the time is hitting around once every 8 seconds not once every 4 and that means I am doing a bit more than 2.5 DpS.

I intend on keeping my Hammer to augment my Scalpel.

[LordBraxton]

I have been (along with many other long time players) screaming this for ages

Buff SRMs like crazy, and see how it changes the Meta.

They should have done that before the gauss\ghost heat changes

If SRMs wreck face point blank as they should(and used to), then strikers\brawlers become much more viable because an SRM focused mech will ALWAYS hold the advantage within 150meters, as it should be.

[Thorqemada]

Balancing ACs is a also matter of a players game philosophy:
Kill the Fight: Wants High Pinpoint/Alpha Damage to get the kills afap while denying Return Fire Options, prefers Long to Medium Range.
Fight to Kill: Wants Low Pinpoint/Alpha Damage to get fights that last some time while seeng the White in the Eye of the Enemy, prefers Short to Medium Range.

MWO atm: Killing >>>>>>>>>>> Fighting!

I was in matches where Lances in Pug-Teams pretty much kill every Opponent in about 5 seconds and the only reason these matches take longer than 1 minute is a few Sheep decide to run away from the Wolves.

I myself pefer to fight for the kill.

Edited by Thorqemada, 13 December 2013 - 11:42 AM.