15 replies to this topic

[Burakumin1979]

Just a few ideas to help PGI balance gameplay and weapon systems or at least make headway towards that goal.

Option 1: Hardpoint Restrictions

Allowing unlimited customization of mechs was a bad idea. Limiting hardpoints is the first step in moving the game back to a tactical, ammo management, heat management, consequences for your build choice simulation.

Premise: Weapons are placed in to 3 subcategories of each hardpoint type (1, 2 and 3).

Specifics:

E1 - Sml laser and med lsr (and pulse versions), flamer
E2 - Large Laser (both) and pulse version
E3 - PPC (both)

B1 - MG, AC2
B2 - AC 5/UAC5, AC10/LBX
B3 - AC20 and Gauss

M1 - SRM2, LRM5, Streak2
M2 - SRM4 and SRM 6, LRM 10
M3 - LRM 15 and LRM 20

Limitation: Each slot can carry its size or smaller. (ex. A B2 slot can carry an AC10 or be downgraded to an AC2).

Desired Effect of Change: Eliminates unintended builds that negatively affect gameplay and allows PGI to more effectively manage balance.

Note: As much people like Dual AC20 Jagers and K2s and Dual Gauss Phracts, they were never really meant for that. This system would give those mechs B2 hardpoints, not B3 hardpoints.



Option 2: Heat Scale Revisit

We all know that adding value to the heat cap based on heat sinks was probably a mistake. It allowed alpha fire to bea legitimate tactic while reducing to almost zero the penalties for doing so.

Premise: Reduction of the heat cap and matching heat sinks heat reduction based on a time scale (TT was 10 seconds) will increase the need for thought before fire.

Specifics:

1. Return the engine heat sinks to single heat sinks to allow builds with lots of extra tonnage to fill out builds with single heat sinks that in TT were more effective.

2. Cap heat at 30.

3. Increase or alter dissipation to balance gameplay excitement vs. desired penalties for alpha fire.

4. Remove ghost heat.

5. Increase ammo explosion chance and have % chance effects at 80%, 90% and 100% of heat cap to include engine criticals that affect movement/heat dissipation.

Limitation: Limiting Heat Cap offset by dissipation

Desired Effect of Change: Limit or reduce alpha strike potential on the battlefield by increasing risks/required management.



Option 3: Ammunition Changes

Ballistics and Missile Weapons with large amount of ammo become less attractive when there are drawbacks with taking them. Implement those drawbacks and reduce the ridiculous amounts of ammo you see on some builds.

Premise: Ammunition can be more easily crit or far more likely to explode when crit.

Specifics:

Increase the chance for an ammo slot being critically hit to 50% to 100%.

Limitation: Increased chance of catastrophic explosion will reduce the desired amount of rounds for ballistic and missile weapons.

Desired Effect of Change: Limit large ammo-dependent loadouts, increase energy weapon use requiring heat management. Adjust until adoption of weapon types reaches equilibrium.

Note: Anyone ever see a TT mech with 14 tons of LRM ammo? 9 tons of AC20 ammo?

Summary:

The line "Adjust until adoption of weapon types reaches equilibrium." sums up what I would like PGI to do. Identify their goal for weapon balance (I assume adoption by the community is a decent goal) and get to it.

As always, just my opinion and certainly not without flaw.

Any other ideas?

Edited by Egomane, 28 April 2014 - 09:42 AM.

[Mcgral18]

As sad as it is, PGI doesn't want balance. They had the chance for months to try balance, but they did nothing.

They've left FLD be a superior method to apply damage since the inception of HSR, they havn't unnerfed the ML and MPL, they left PPCs at low heat for months.

Give up on them reimagining weapons, it just isn't going to happen.

Edited by Mcgral18, 28 April 2014 - 09:44 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

As sad as it is, PGI doesn't want balance. They had the chance for months to try balance, but they did nothing.

Actually the truth is even sadder. PGI thinks the game IS balanced.

[Joseph Mallan]

Khobai, on 28 April 2014 - 09:47 AM, said:

Actually the truth is even sadder. PGI thinks the game IS balanced.

balance is a fickle word. Balance for which group of players. For the power player this game is wimped out. I had fun getting in 4-5 COMPLETE games in 30 minutes on the test server last week.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 28 April 2014 - 09:51 AM.

[AlmightyAeng]

Burakumin1979, on 28 April 2014 - 09:38 AM, said:

Just a few ideas to help PGI balance gameplay and weapon systems or at least make headway towards that goal.

Option 1: Hardpoint Restrictions

Spoiler

Allowing unlimited customization of mechs was a bad idea. Limiting hardpoints is the first step in moving the game back to a tactical, ammo management, heat management, consequences for your build choice simulation.

Premise: Weapons are placed in to 3 subcategories of each hardpoint type (1, 2 and 3).

Specifics:

E1 - Sml laser and med lsr (and pulse versions), flamer
E2 - Large Laser (both) and pulse version
E3 - PPC (both)

B1 - MG, AC2
B2 - AC 5/UAC5, AC10/LBX
B3 - AC20 and Gauss

M1 - SRM2, LRM5, Streak2
M2 - SRM4 and SRM 6, LRM 10
M3 - LRM 15 and LRM 20

Limitation: Each slot can carry its size or smaller. (ex. A B2 slot can carry an AC10 or be downgraded to an AC2).

Desired Effect of Change: Eliminates unintended builds that negatively affect gameplay and allows PGI to more effectively manage balance.

Note: As much people like Dual AC20 Jagers and K2s and Dual Gauss Phracts, they were never really meant for that. This system would give those mechs B2 hardpoints, not B3 hardpoints.

PGI has said, multiple times, they will never do hardpoint restrictions. No matter how convincingly we argue, it's not happening.

Quote

Option 2: Heat Scale Revisit

Spoiler

We all know that adding value to the heat cap based on heat sinks was probably a mistake. It allowed alpha fire to bea legitimate tactic while reducing to almost zero the penalties for doing so.

Premise: Reduction of the heat cap and matching heat sinks heat reduction based on a time scale (TT was 10 seconds) will increase the need for thought before fire.

Specifics:

1. Return the engine heat sinks to single heat sinks to allow builds with lots of extra tonnage to fill out builds with single heat sinks that in TT were more effective.

2. Cap heat at 30.

3. Increase or alter dissipation to balance gameplay excitement vs. desired penalties for alpha fire.

4. Remove ghost heat.

5. Increase ammo explosion chance and have % chance effects at 80%, 90% and 100% of heat cap to include engine criticals that affect movement/heat dissipation.

Limitation: Limiting Heat Cap offset by dissipation

Desired Effect of Change: Limit or reduce alpha strike potential on the battlefield by increasing risks/required management.

Paul has said heat scale is "working as intended" and he's VERY happy with it. Again, it'll never happen, despite how many of us think it should.

Quote

Option 3: Ammunition Changes

Spoiler

Ballistics and Missile Weapons with large amount of ammo become less attractive when there are drawbacks with taking them. Implement those drawbacks and reduce the ridiculous amounts of ammo you see on some builds.

Premise: Ammunition can be more easily crit or far more likely to explode when crit.

Specifics:

Increase the chance for an ammo slot being critically hit to 50% to 100%.

Limitation: Increased chance of catastrophic explosion will reduce the desired amount of rounds for ballistic and missile weapons.

Desired Effect of Change: Limit large ammo-dependent loadouts, increase energy weapon use requiring heat management. Adjust until adoption of weapon types reaches equilibrium.

Note: Anyone ever see a TT mech with 14 tons of LRM ammo? 9 tons of AC20 ammo?

I would go quite that high %-wise...and I'd only condone this on sections that the armor is removed. Still, decent idea.

[Roland]

Size limited hardpoints is a good idea, but having 3 arbitrary sizes is not.
Limit hardpoints based on a numer of critical slots. There's no reason to bother making up some kind of arbitrary size groups.

[Z0MBIE Y0SHI]

Am I the only one that thinks that half the problem with balance is the fact that maps are limited, support ranged fighting and we currently have absoulutely no control over what map we're dropping on?

What could you possibly do to the LB10X to make it good on Alpine?

Edited by Z0MBIE Y0SHI, 28 April 2014 - 10:09 AM.

[Burakumin1979]

Fair enough Roland. Accomplishes the same thing.

Ghost Badger - While I agree that 50% is high for an actual slot being crit, remember that a critical hit doesn't necessarily hit an ammo location every time unless you've stacked tons of ammo. Critical hits on empty crit slots should do nothing and that effectively reduces the crit chance accordingly.

Also Ghost, I know, but gotta keep putting it out there for them to see.

Zombie - I feel that role warfare doesn't really exist. They made tiny maps and objectives for a game that should be played on Planetside 2-ish control maps where you hop to large maps and planet to planet.

Planetside 2 with large stompy multi-hit location robots. There's your warfare.

[Roland]

Z0MBIE Y0SHI, on 28 April 2014 - 10:08 AM, said:

What could you possibly do to the LB10X to make it good on Alpine?

Up the damage to 1.4 per pellet.
It still won't be an ideal weapon on a map like Alpine, but it at least will reward you if you manage to close the distance.

[Z0MBIE Y0SHI]

Roland, on 28 April 2014 - 10:15 AM, said:

Up the damage to 1.4 per pellet.
It still won't be an ideal weapon on a map like Alpine, but it at least will reward you if you manage to close the distance.

But you have to close the distance. Increasing the damage won't do anything if by time you get to your target you're bright red from PPC/AC/LRM/Gauss. You'll just do a little extra damage before dying hilariously, that doesn't balance things out.

[Davers]

The AC2 nerf shows that PGI doesn't believe a lighter weapon should be better than a heavier weapon, even if only in specific circumstances.

PGI believes ACs are balanced vs energy by weight, ammo constructions, and the chance of ammo explosions.

The LL is not an alternative to the PPC. This is by design.

I have no idea what the philosophy behind LPLs or LBs is other than 'don't use them'.

[FupDup]

Davers, on 28 April 2014 - 10:58 AM, said:

The AC2 nerf shows that PGI doesn't believe a lighter weapon should be better than a heavier weapon, even if only in specific circumstances.

PGI believes ACs are balanced vs energy by weight, ammo constructions, and the chance of ammo explosions.

The LL is not an alternative to the PPC. This is by design.

I have no idea what the philosophy behind LPLs or LBs is other than 'don't use them'.

What's funny is that the AC/2 was already worse than other AC's in most capacities. If you do the math, even the AC/20 could do more damage at 720 meters than the AC/2 could (albeit being very hard to aim). Even the Large Laser is more powerful at 720m than the AC/2, by almost double the amount (3.6 damage versus 2 damage).

The AC/2's alpha damage is so low that it is actually the least effective weapon of the "long-range" category in the game.

Edited by FupDup, 28 April 2014 - 11:04 AM.

[DemonRaziel]

Khobai, on 28 April 2014 - 09:47 AM, said:

Actually the truth is even sadder. PGI thinks the game IS balanced.

And this is the main problem.

They even neglect easy fixes that are available within their limiting tools, like upping to ghost heat tolerance on lasers to 3, to give it at least some attraction over PPCs (albeit marginal), or separating the LPL from the other large lasers for the same reason.

Reworking the heat scale would probably be the best option, but they had countless chances to do this during beta. Instead, they gave us ghost heat and called it a day.

Though I'm with you

Burakumin1979, on 28 April 2014 - 10:13 AM, said:

Also Ghost, I know, but gotta keep putting it out there for them to see.

I'm with you on this one. Maybe they will give some of the suggestions at least a try.

But I fear there is no chance for changing their minds. Since they withstood the Forum uprisals, barely having to back down in most cases, they are aware that everything goes.

[AlmightyAeng]

Burakumin1979, on 28 April 2014 - 10:13 AM, said:

Also Ghost, I know, but gotta keep putting it out there for them to see.

When I was new, I was optimistic and made lots of suggestions, too. These days I only offer ideas on subjects I'm unaware they've "closed the discussion" on and try to help in the New Player Section.

Kudos for keeping the faith, man.

[Burakumin1979]

Any additional ideas for reintroducing balance?

Perhaps Rearm and Repair in a better implemented state.

[Gas Guzzler]

Z0MBIE Y0SHI, on 28 April 2014 - 10:20 AM, said:

But you have to close the distance. Increasing the damage won't do anything if by time you get to your target you're bright red from PPC/AC/LRM/Gauss. You'll just do a little extra damage before dying hilariously, that doesn't balance things out.

What do you want then? A super tight spread with an optimum range of 800 m? Would that balance things out? If by the time you get close to your target you are bright red, you are doing something wrong.

If you outfit a Mech without weapons that are effective at long range, then you need to play accordingly. You cannot just head towards an enemy with LRMs, PPCs, and Autocannons and hope you get there to get a shot off.