1911 replies to this topic

[p4r4g0n]

Thanks for the link Cimarb and thank you Paul for doing the podcast. I enjoyed some of the insights which were sorely needed to clear the air on a couple of things.

Edited by p4r4g0n, 23 April 2014 - 10:13 AM.

[Alaskan Nobody]

Haven't been able to watch it, can anyone give a summary?

[Klappspaten]

That should be about all of it.

Fanatic, on 23 April 2014 - 05:42 AM, said:

On what Paul does;

• 2:39 - Paul passively monitors what everyone is doing, engineers, artists, design. Actively monitoring Clans, Balance, Community Warfare is the big thing he's doing at the moment, trying to get buy in from everyone.

On 3rd Person;

• 3:50 - He's responsible for gameplay, "what's going on in the playerbase". Paul was against 3PV - someone else designed it. 3PV was pressure from outside and inside sources. External Business Stakeholder was the biggest weight to push it in.
  
• 5:12 - Locked viewpoint(no 360 spin) was his work, didn't want 3PV to give too much of a tactical advantage. PGI definitely didn't think it was a useful addition to the game, but in the end the EBS pushed it.
  
• 5:58 - UI2 was some of his work, but basically "anything within the game space" is his.
  
• 7:15 - 3PV was an "external territories" thing.
  
• 8:40 - Paul was the architect of repair and rearm. Wasn't responsible for the C-Bill nerf or anything since in the In Game Economy - was consulted and had concerns that were considered.
  
• 9:50 - Marketing is all IGP. Doesn't have anything to do with sales etc. The Announcement of the Clan Invasion and timing came as a surprise to him but all he could do was roll with it and get to work on it.

On the Heat Scale;

• 11:25 - Heat scale was all Paul. Original problem was high damage alphas' - all MW's had this issue. "Heat scale stops high damage alpha", ignoring pinpoint damage.
  
• 12:50 - A lower Heat cap doesn't stop this because you can cool down and do it again. Heat scale works better because you can die from it.
  
• 13:20 - Still working on balancing where it should start from a points of damage count.
  
• 14:00 - Person making a 30 point shot has to jump through hoops and that's a skill shot. Heat scale is working exactly as they want. A little tooling can be done but generally they are very happy where it is right now
  
• 15:00 - Paul can see the benefit of more information about ghost heat. Maybe an in game indicator that you can then go and search in the front end to find out what's going on.
  
• 16:00 - No resources just yet to do this, is on the list.

• 16:15 - Front end team concentrating on launch module, then onto Clan implementation for mechlab since Clans are build with PODs which obviously changes how you build mechs. etc.
  
• 18:40 - New players aren't going to look at numbers, they're going to feel the impact of ghost heat and then try to find out what's happening.
  
• 19:30 - New players adapted to the new LRMs quickly.

On the AC changes;

• 20:40 - Feedback from meta, competitive players was that AC5s were doing too much damage. Focused changes on normalizing
  
• 21:26 - 2km shots are like shooting at specks on the screen, so the range of the ac2 was ridiculous.
  
• 23:20 - Not going to get synergy between the weapons, the ac2 has a niche role.
  
• - Wants to stay away from any weapon system being all things for all ranges and roles
  
• 27:00 - Talks about heat scale impact on ac2 due to recycle times, reiterates the announcement on the forums.

On weapon changes in general;

• 28:25 - Some changes (command chair post coming) to the Clan weapon setup for balance purposes. Tonnage and crits are locked for all weapons. Will be giving clan some quirks of weapons since they need to reign Clan mechs in so much to balance them against Inner Sphere tech.
  
• 29:29 - Sweeping changes are done, micro changes from now on.

On SRMs;

• 30:17 - 29th Patch is going to really revitalize SRMs. Brian B tracked down another issue which should (might) really improve things further, but now getting into territory of requiring numbers changes before all these fixes go in. Seems to be a night and day fix, will probably have to review Damage output of SRMs because of the change to prevent the return of the SplatCat.
  
• 32:10 - 29th Patch also includes wrong panel taking damage fixes. Brian fix and the 29th Patch brings hit registration upto 80-90%.

On Clans;

• 33:30 - Clan marketing not Paul's area, some of it was a surprise to him.
  
• 36:00 - Clan AC's could be shooting in bursts, i.e. CUAC20 5 round burst doing 4 damage per shell, so will be DoT and doing spread damage. Will still have jamming mechanic too. There won't be Clan Standard ACs (though there was some confusion on this).
  
• 38:05 - Potentially looking at beam duration to balance Clan lasers (standard and pulse).
  
• 38:40 - LRMs firing in sequence is a possibility, so firing in streams which will improve AMS performance against them.
  
• 39:30 - No minimum range on Clan LRMs, but possibly ramping up damage from 0 - 180m.
  
• 40:20 - Clan ATMs are under discussion, not ready to discuss - though Paul says he's focussing on weapons(?).
  
• 41:05 - Doesn't want Inner Sphere to have ability to change ammo on the LBX. Clans only option.
  
• 43:00 - Ghost heat for Clans is probably going to be the same as IS.
  
• 43:30 - Dave is designing the mechanics of the Clans, Paul's just doing weapons in this run through.

On Community Warfare;

• 44:40 - Fully understands the doubt in the delivery of CW. Guarantees that CW is going through design lock down.
  
• 45:15 - Want everyone who plays to have a role in the IS. Taking over a planet is epic, want everyone to be involved.
  
• 46:10 - They want to do CW right first time rather than having to design on the fly.
  
• 46:35 - Involving engineering in the process more from the start, rather than telling the engineers to design it as it is on the page
  
• 48:10 - They have a small team so key features come first. UI2.0 took all the resources for CW, then launch module took all the resources, then Clans took all the resources.
  
• 51:10 - Decision was to get content out then let people play with the content whilst they build CW.

On 3/3/3/3 related changes;

• 52:40 - No way of knowing how big a group is going to affect a match. Decided to stick with 4 (was a push for 3 from somewhere).

Edited by Klappspaten, 23 April 2014 - 12:11 PM.

[Vlad Ward]

Hi Karl,

I just found this thread, and I am absolutely stunned by how awesome this is. Thank you for taking so much of your time to discuss these things with us.

I realize this is going back a few pages, but I was curious about the back end mechanisms you brought up regarding rapid fire ballistic weapons - especially now that we have Paul talking about burst fire clan weapons.

Assuming this is something that's already been submitted by design, what approaches have you and your team considered for dealing with the increased server load and other inconveniences caused by burst fire ballistics? Could any of these solutions end up "ported back" to inner sphere tech in the future?

Likewise, could improvements in the performance of multiple starting vector ballistic projectile tracking eventually allow for the potential introduction of weapon recoil or other similar mechanics?

Personally, I feel like mounting two high velocity slug launchers on the tip top of a tall, thin jagermech would have been much less of a balance issue from the get-go if firing both weapons simultaneously caused the thing to fall over backwards or be otherwise bowled over.

[Cimarb]

Shar Wolf, on 23 April 2014 - 11:44 AM, said:

Haven't been able to watch it, can anyone give a summary?

Pieper is going to write up a full transcript and send it to me to post here as soon as he gets a chance, but it will probably be late tonight or tomorrow morning before he gets a chance.

[Klappspaten]

Vlad Ward, on 23 April 2014 - 12:30 PM, said:

Personally, I feel like mounting two high velocity slug launchers on the tip top of a tall, thin jagermech would have been much less of a balance issue from the get-go if firing both weapons simultaneously caused the thing to fall over backwards or be otherwise bowled over.

You are right if you say it should have recoil.
But two Ac20s wont ever flip a 65 ton Mech over.

65 tons are 65.000 kilograms, 143.000 thousand pounds, in words onehoundrethfourtythreethousand pounds. Lets say a projectile from the Ac20 weighs 20 kilograms, thats 44lbs, that would mean you need to accelerate the projectile with 3250 pounds of thrust to knock the Mech over.

Plus, a projectile with 143.000 pounds of force would obliberate everything. It would probably punch nice, perfectly round holes in multiple atlases with one shot.

[Vlad Ward]

Err, that's not quite right.

You don't need any force to knock a mech over. You need torque. Think about it a bit and it'll click. I don't want to bog down this thread with mechanics but feel free to PM me if you want to discuss this further.

Edited by Vlad Ward, 23 April 2014 - 02:40 PM.

[pbiggz]

Hehe... You would talk pure physics...

I digress, I really like this thread, if the entirety of PGI took notes from karl's conduct here, we'd have a much better time. Additionally, id like to note that the mechanics proposed to balance clan tech is a step in the right direction, but I wonder karl, why is there so much resistance to implementing similar mechanics to IS tech? Is it simply lack of time and manpower, or is it an active decision? I feel like if the design team were to take notes from past mechwarrior games there are a lot of ways we could solve problems with the meta that paul doesn't seem interested in solving.

Additionally, are these the same reasons that the launch module is being released in a somewhat limited capacity compared to what was originally slated? (Full lobbies with 2-12 sized group support).

Edited by pbiggz, 23 April 2014 - 04:04 PM.

[Klappspaten]

Vlad Ward, on 23 April 2014 - 02:39 PM, said:

Err, that's not quite right.

You don't need any force to knock a mech over. You need torque. Think about it a bit and it'll click. I don't want to bog down this thread with mechanics but feel free to PM me if you want to discuss this further.

Yes, and what exactly generates the torque if not force? Without force no torque. I know that pounds of thrust is not the scientifically correct term here. But it was suffice to say what I wanted to say.
In german I would be perfectly happy to talk exact science with you but I doubt that my english would bring me very far in that topic.
Quite frankly its a futile discussion anyway because on one hand we do not know the weight of an Ac20 projectile and on the other hand we would need to define the way in which the shooting Mech stands as he fires the weapon.
But you are right, we shouldn´t discuss this here.

[Roadbeer]

Vlad Ward, on 23 April 2014 - 02:39 PM, said:

Err, that's not quite right.

You don't need any force to knock a mech over. You need torque. Think about it a bit and it'll click. I don't want to bog down this thread with mechanics but feel free to PM me if you want to discuss this further.

Klappspaten, on 23 April 2014 - 04:07 PM, said:

Yes, and what exactly generates the torque if not force? Without force no torque. I know that pounds of thrust is not the scientifically correct term here. But it was suffice to say what I wanted to say.
In german I would be perfectly happy to talk exact science with you but I doubt that my english would bring me very far in that topic.
Quite frankly its a futile discussion anyway because on one hand we do not know the weight of an Ac20 projectile and on the other hand we would need to define the way in which the shooting Mech stands as he fires the weapon.
But you are right, we shouldn´t discuss this here.

FOCUS, NERDS!

[pbiggz]

PHYSICS FIGHT

http://www.z0r.de/1876

[Karl Berg]

Wow, lots of interesting tangents here..

In general, for a falling object, the force generated on contact with the ground is related to the velocity component parallel to the ground normal (discounting frictional forces and restitution). In MWO currently, it's nothing physically based at the moment. The gameplay team put the current fall damage mechanics into place; however this is something that's being looked at quite carefully right now.

A torque is indeed generated by applying a force off the centre of gravity for any rigid body. Basically, take the contact point for the force, the centre of gravity of the object being accelerated, and the force vector itself. If those are all co-linear, the torque component evaluates to zero, and there will be no change in angular velocity by applying the force. Mathematically, you can calculate this by taking the cross product of the moment arm and the force being applied. Parallel vectors cross-product to the zero vector.

Now that many of you have listened to Paul's segment on NGNG, indeed he is working on ripple fire LRM's and burst fire AC's. The fallout from these changes are still in progress, so I don't have solid specifics to get into at this time. As to whether or not these changes will be back-ported to IS tech, that's entirely up to design.

[SnagaDance]

Take note people, a Physics degree is needed before getting into Mech-game programming etc.!

[Dimento Graven]

Karl,

Another question that maybe you can get some answers on.

TURRETS - How does the turret system designate target priority?

I >>KNOW<< it's not whatever enemy is in range, line of sight, first/closest.

I >>KNOW<< this because I have SEVERAL instances where there's a group of my teammates spread out in front of me, but suddenly I start getting 'incoming missiles' from the missile turrets.

I literally have to move to the side a bit to get out from behind a friendly unit that's directly between me and the missile turret before I can actually see the missile turret, but it's firing at me, and as long as I'm in range, no matter what, that turret seems to be targeting me. It is like it could be surrounded in a 400 meter ring by 11 Locusts all firing medium lasers at it, but that f'er will be firing EXCLUSIVELY me, 300 meters farther out.

What gives with that?

[Klappspaten]

Dimento Graven, on 24 April 2014 - 06:03 AM, said:

Karl,

Another question that maybe you can get some answers on.

TURRETS - How does the turret system designate target priority?

I >>KNOW<< it's not whatever enemy is in range, line of sight, first/closest.

I >>KNOW<< this because I have SEVERAL instances where there's a group of my teammates spread out in front of me, but suddenly I start getting 'incoming missiles' from the missile turrets.

I literally have to move to the side a bit to get out from behind a friendly unit that's directly between me and the missile turret before I can actually see the missile turret, but it's firing at me, and as long as I'm in range, no matter what, that turret seems to be targeting me. It is like it could be surrounded in a 400 meter ring by 11 Locusts all firing medium lasers at it, but that f'er will be firing EXCLUSIVELY me, 300 meters farther out.

What gives with that?

I would say Karma ^^

But its still ture, I have expierienced that too.
Sometimes the missle turrets fire at me when I´m not even in the 450 meter radius and another Mech has triggered the turret.

[shellashock]

I am all but positive that this hasn't been asked before here.

How often is "The Plan" updated, and is a fixed timeline for updating.

Ie, "The Plan" is updated every month and is only updated on the first day of the second week of said month, etc.

[p4r4g0n]

shellashock, on 24 April 2014 - 07:31 AM, said:

I am all but positive that this hasn't been asked before here.

How often is "The Plan" updated, and is a fixed timeline for updating.

Ie, "The Plan" is updated every month and is only updated on the first day of the second week of said month, etc.

Not in this thread but I believe it has been stated somewhere before. It is updated monthly but not sure about specific date. Depends on when time is available I think as I am not aware of a specific update day.

[Modo44]

There was a lot of talk about the Elo delta between teams. Can you tell us how the Elo delta within each team is? Will the launch module improve that?

Edited by Modo44, 24 April 2014 - 08:03 AM.

[WVAnonymous]

Turret AI is an interesting question. Are the turrets hypothetically manned weapons?

Is there an underlying assumption about heat capacity or ammo capacity in the turrets now or in the future?

For some suggested game modes, a turret that runs out of LRMs but the defending team can turn the turret on or off (with a COMMAND MODULE) may add a lot of interest.

[Buso Senshi Zelazny]

SnagaDance, on 24 April 2014 - 04:33 AM, said:

Take note people, a Physics degree is needed before getting into Mech-game programming etc.!

I could see an Mechanical Engineering Degree being just as, if not more useful. They learn basic Physics, (Newton's Laws etc), which is then the back bone of Rigid Body Dynamics, Dynamic Systems Modelling,and the like. Knowledge in these areas would answer many of the "nerd" posts that have popped up in this thread. I am an engineer myself so this side of the game really interests me.

Which brings me to my question for Karl and the team. I'm not really sure if background in any of this material is required for game design, but it is obviously relevant in many cases. Karl clearly has some knowledge in these areas based on his previous posts, but I'm curious how the rest of the team stands up. What are the backgrounds of some of the other members of the team in the Gameplay and Design departments? Are there any with engineering or physics backgrounds, or did they come from a coding background and had to learn the physics stuff after the fact?

Fanatic said:

Overview of Paul on MDB:
...

46:35 - Involving engineering in the process more from the start, rather than telling the engineers to design it as it is on the page

...

Also, could you elaborate a little bit more on this from Paul's latest interview with NGNG? What aspects are you working on more closely with the design team? Does this kind of interaction between departments help or hinder the production and release of features? Does it allow the team to develop features faster, or simply to make them "better" once they are released?