141 replies to this topic

[Mcgral18]

Ultimatum X, on 10 October 2014 - 08:59 AM, said:

Part of TTK is not just absorbing raw damage, part of it is the circumstances of the match - including both personal play and team work.

150% damage is another part. Not excessive, but enough of a difference.

I wonder what Megamek would give for TTK against two assaults, without headshots and TACs. More than 20 seconds, most likely.

[Ultimax]

Mcgral18, on 10 October 2014 - 09:03 AM, said:

150% damage is another part. Not excessive, but enough of a difference.

If Player A is able to take advantage of the higher rate of fire to deal 150% of the damage you would deal in 10s in TT, that is often the result of positioning.

Either Player A exploited the situation to full advantage allowing them to "fire everything!" 3x in a row, or Player B was badly out of position and over exposed themselves.



Take stock of some matches, calculate all of the time you spend firing vs. the time you do not spend firing. (I'll even spot you the first 2 minutes where combat hasn't even started and everyone is finding position - we can remove this).

Then average out the total shots fired over the course of the entire battle.


My guess is that you will be unlikely to have fired the full rate of fire for every weapon for every 10s time frame of that entire battle.

[Mcgral18]

Ultimatum X, on 10 October 2014 - 09:08 AM, said:

If Player A is able to take advantage of the higher rate of fire to deal 150% of the damage you would deal in 10s in TT, that is often the result of positioning.

Either Player A exploited the situation to full advantage allowing them to "fire everything!" 3x in a row, or Player B was badly out of position and over exposed themselves.



Take stock of some matches, calculate all of the time you spend firing vs. the time you do not spend firing. (I'll even spot you the first 2 minutes where combat hasn't even started and everyone is finding position - we can remove this).

Then average out the total shots fired over the course of the entire battle.


My guess is that you will be unlikely to have fired the full rate of fire for every weapon for every 10s time frame of that entire battle.

You deal TT damage in 1 second for just about every weapon, barring Clam lasers.

At 4/5 seconds, you deal 2x TT damage. At ~8 seconds, you deal 3x TT damage. For most weapons, which are around that 4 second cooldown.

Simple enough to make use of that increased RoF. Armour at 2X makes it reasonable, but certainly not TT.

You can't deny PGI really borked the TT values by not decreasing their heat and damage when increasing their RoF (along with ammo by the same ratio). That 3x RoF lead to 2x armour, and this nerfed dissipation against 3x heat.


The whole ratio is borked.

[EgoSlayer]

Ultimatum X, on 10 October 2014 - 08:55 AM, said:

However I'm good enough to recognize and analyze when I die, and the vast majority of cases it's because either I made a mistake and was punished or my team simply collapsed.

QFT - If only more people could do this...

[Kain Demos]

Mcgral18, on 10 October 2014 - 09:13 AM, said:

You deal TT damage in 1 second for just about every weapon, barring Clam lasers.

At 4/5 seconds, you deal 2x TT damage. At ~8 seconds, you deal 3x TT damage. For most weapons, which are around that 4 second cooldown.

Simple enough to make use of that increased RoF. Armour at 2X makes it reasonable, but certainly not TT.

You can't deny PGI really borked the TT values by not decreasing their heat and damage when increasing their RoF (along with ammo by the same ratio). That 3x RoF lead to 2x armour, and this nerfed dissipation against 3x heat.


The whole ratio is borked.

I don't think there is a "TTK issue" in this game but if they increased armor values by 50% across the board I guess I wouldn't complain.

[Ultimax]

Mcgral18, on 10 October 2014 - 09:13 AM, said:

You deal TT damage in 1 second for just about every weapon, barring Clam lasers.

At 4/5 seconds, you deal 2x TT damage. At ~8 seconds, you deal 3x TT damage. For most weapons, which are around that 4 second cooldown.

Simple enough to make use of that increased RoF. Armour at 2X makes it reasonable, but certainly not TT.

You can't deny PGI really borked the TT values by not decreasing their heat and damage when increasing their RoF (along with ammo by the same ratio). That 3x RoF lead to 2x armour, and this nerfed dissipation against 3x heat.


The whole ratio is borked.

Borked according to what?

This is an online multiplayer shooter.

Current matches have a finite limit of 15 minutes with a likely optimal range of match about 1/2 to 2/3rds of that (average).


Outside of lopsided matches, most of my matches tend to be right around that mid-range mark.



I also think players often mistake being focus fired for "The Dire Wolf killed me!!".

Most of my kills usually come from targeting a mech that is already damaged.

[Adiuvo]

Mcgral18, on 10 October 2014 - 08:54 AM, said:

That's how long it takes to kill one. Deathstars are very effective. Whales are probably around that. Maybe even 6 seconds with that dual gauss laserspam.

That's the time it takes to kill one when you're just sitting there letting them core you out.

Torso twisting is very effective, but rarely used by your typical player.

[Mcgral18]

Ultimatum X, on 10 October 2014 - 09:17 AM, said:

Borked according to what?

This is an online multiplayer shooter.

Current matches have a finite limit of 15 minutes with a likely optimal range of match about 1/2 to 2/3rds of that (average).


Outside of lopsided matches, most of my matches tend to be right around that mid-range mark.



I also think players often mistake being focus fired for "The Dire Wolf killed me!!".

Most of my kills usually come from targeting a mech that is already damaged.

Borked according to their source values...which is why we have a 14 ton AC60. Or AC40, or AC30 depending on how you calculate it. Maths are weird.


A fault that was never rectified, and why energy boats are so poor. 1x dissipation (nerfed if you have more than 17 DHS) against 3x heat.

That's on top of a rather poor heat system, which might have actually worked alright with proper heat values, but we'll never know.


A resounding Meh on my part. Things gone wrong, which works alright, but feels quite a bit like CoD 3050 at times. Killing is far too easy.

Adiuvo, on 10 October 2014 - 09:24 AM, said:

That's the time it takes to kill one when you're just sitting there letting them core you out.

Torso twisting is very effective, but rarely used by your typical player.

Fairly hard to twist 50 damage in .5 seconds. Or dual gauss. You have to stare at them at some point.

[Gorgo7]

Lordred, on 10 October 2014 - 08:01 AM, said:

So if we Doubled armor to increase the Time to Kill (TTK), so why dont we just lower some of the weapons damage so that they fall inline with the armor now?

This wont be TL:DR its just a simple graph.

Blue is 10 Second AVG for Damage in MWO
Red is 10 Second AVG for Doubling Table Top
Yellow is 10 Second AVG for Table Top Damage.

So, what if we just made the weapons more consistent to the armor?

Nice chart Lordred.
Note that if I pull the trigger on an AC20 then wait 4 seconds fire and do it again I've laid out 60 pts...the remaining 2 seconds = another 10 pts
Total 70.
Same for all the other weapons. They do max damage immediately, then the counter runs to 10 seconds.

No offense intended. Just an observation.

Cheers,

Gorgo7

[Tombstoner]

Adiuvo, on 10 October 2014 - 08:48 AM, said:

If you're dying in 8 seconds in an assault mech that is literally due to you facetanking, and in general playing poorly.


Rounding the corner against a lance of heavy mechs *should* be a death sentence.

Yes it should be, but an atlas should be able to face tank. The way PGI translated a random 2d6 hit location into pin point focused fire with no correction is to blame. They did nothing to the atlases armor and doubled it because fire rates increased 2.5x. armor should have been increased 2.5x not 2x.

The TT to FPS port is broken. its missing huge chunks of needed work. work that separates the hacks from a AAA studio.

When all mechs can hit your ct at will your effective strength of your CT armor is reduced buy the number of areas your armor is allocated to in this case 7 location. because damage is no longer a 2d6 roll. armor placement must be increased.
to compensate for the change from 2d6 random system to player choice.

[Rebas Kradd]

Roland, on 10 October 2014 - 08:43 AM, said:

A lot of players tout the idea that increased time to kill is desirable, because they think that this will make them more competitive.

In reality, it'll actually make them less so, compared to better players.

As you increase time to kill, you actually extend the gap between players that results from skill. Poor players will get even fewer kills with a longer TTK.

This is probably true, and it's a good point.

However...higher TTK would also give more breathing room for nuance in the game, such as targeting of components, noticeable battle damage like destroyed arm actuators, and opportunity for individual reinforcement. Right now, such things are completely buried by the intensity of the firefights. PGI isn't going to bother with immersive elements like leg actuators when you're 0.7 seconds from death anyway.

I agree that walking into five heavy mechs should be a death sentence. But when the entire match is composed of such encounters, there's a problem. 12v12 is doing that, and it has to be accounted for.

Not by blindly reducing weapon damage, though. Perhaps Victor's frequent suggestion of reducing ROF on heavier weapons should be looked into.

Edited by Rebas Kradd, 10 October 2014 - 09:31 AM.

[Clit Beastwood]

FupDup, on 10 October 2014 - 08:13 AM, said:

The problem is all of that damage instantly converging onto a single spot.

I don't know that it's so much a "problem" as just being "way different than TT".

Then we're left with TT players that want randomized hit distribution, cone of fire, etc. - on the flip side we've got players that spend time sharpening their aim, etc. Who's the game supposed to cater to? MWO's community has an identity crisis. No matter what, one of those sides is going to be upset. The TT guys need to realize that this isn't TT. MWO is more skill based than rolling dice to determine whether something hit or not. The argument is neverending, and riding the middle ground ticks everyone off.

The former FPS players/avid online gamers that have played skill based games requiring hand/eye coordination - they don't want randomized hitting, etc.

The TT guys want aim/skill to be less of an issue so it's closer to the TT experience.

I don't honestly see a situation with the current game that is going to make both sides happy. If the playerbase gets big enough, maybe a "TT Rules" game mode or something. But that's probably a looooooong way off. PGI's missing out on an opportunity - use the test server to host "TableTop Tuesdays" or something along those lines. That would be.. well, interesting, at least. I don't think I'd enjoy it, but I'd give it a shot


This post is *not* a dig at TT fans - I really wanted MW:Tactics to work out so you guys could play the game you really want, but that doesn't look promising

[FupDup]

Fierostetz, on 10 October 2014 - 09:30 AM, said:

I don't know that it's so much a "problem" as just being "way different than TT".

Then we're left with TT players that want randomized hit distribution, cone of fire, etc. - on the flip side we've got players that spend time sharpening their aim, etc. Who's the game supposed to cater to? MWO's community has an identity crisis. No matter what, one of those sides is going to be upset. The TT guys need to realize that this isn't TT. MWO is more skill based than rolling dice to determine whether something hit or not. The argument is neverending, and riding the middle ground ticks everyone off.

The former FPS players/avid online gamers that have played skill based games requiring hand/eye coordination - they don't want randomized hitting, etc.

The TT guys want aim/skill to be less of an issue so it's closer to the TT experience.

I don't honestly see a situation with the current game that is going to make both sides happy. If the playerbase gets big enough, maybe a "TT Rules" game mode or something. But that's probably a looooooong way off. PGI's missing out on an opportunity - use the test server to host "TableTop Tuesdays" or something along those lines. That would be.. well, interesting, at least. I don't think I'd enjoy it, but I'd give it a shot


This post is *not* a dig at TT fans - I really wanted MW:Tactics to work out so you guys could play the game you really want, but that doesn't look promising

Note that convergence solutions don't necessarily need to be literally random hit locations. There's only like 1-2 guys on this forum that support that idea (I won't name the main one to avoiding invoking his presence...). Most other ideas, however, maintain the ability to aim to some extent.

My own favorite is Homeless Bill's, which basically lets you fire small groups/individual guns perfectly accurate like right now, but when you try to fire a huge alpha then the weapons don't converge and fire parallel to their mounting locations instead (would probably also add individual reticules for each limb while that effect lasts).


PS: The closest I've gotten to playing TT is MWT, and I frequently make suggestions for modifying TT values of various kinds (including in this very thread). I actually probably qualify as one of the more "FPS-ish" players than a TT "grognard." For balance, corerule ignore!

Edited by FupDup, 10 October 2014 - 09:36 AM.

[Clit Beastwood]

Kain Thul, on 10 October 2014 - 09:15 AM, said:

I don't think there is a "TTK issue" in this game but if they increased armor values by 50% across the board I guess I wouldn't complain.

While that mitigates FLD somewhat, and makes mechs easier to kill, it *also* has the unintended consequences of making it FAR more difficult for lights, and any non-fld weapons. Gunnery skill is a variable that can't be balanced. Some people just shoot better than others. Balancing the game to mitigate the top-tier shooters means life gets harder for everyone else... but the top-tier shooters are *still* going to kill quicker. Built-in training like America's Army, maybe with cbill or MC bounses for qualifying, beating self-scores, etc. might encourage people to practice, and could ultimately bring the overall gunnery skill of the community up to a point where the playing field is more level. Don't focus on bringing the top-end down, try to bring the bottom-end up.

[RazorbeastFXK3]

Lowering the amount of damage weapons deal isn't going to solve anything other than increase frustration of the average player.. As someone else mentioned it will just turn into a giant pillow fight without feathers flying around. [RANT]Are we going to put our 'mechs in a bikini next? "TASTE MY MAMMARIES OF DEWM!"[/rant]

Raising the armor point allowance was a good deal. The only thing that influences the damage/death rate is the level of skill and luck of the pilots involved on both the serving and receiving end of the weapons used along with efficient and effective armor placement (and possible latency mismatching issues). I appreciate your effort in trying to offer suggestion to balance the game but this isn't the proper angle of attack.

[Ultimax]

Mcgral18, on 10 October 2014 - 09:26 AM, said:

Borked according to their source values...which is why we have a 14 ton AC60. Or AC40, or AC30 depending on how you calculate it. Maths are weird.


A fault that was never rectified, and why energy boats are so poor. 1x dissipation (nerfed if you have more than 17 DHS) against 3x heat.

That depends on your perspective.

Energy weapons very consistently put out much larger alpha potential for much lower weight and crit slots.

Their cap is on sustained DPS, which is limited by heat dissipation.


Ballistics very consistently put out high DPS, but have lower alpha potential proportionally for their weight and crit slots.


For 16 tons a Timber Wolf Laser Vomit build can put out a 51 point alpha.

There is no combination of ballistics in the game that will grant you a 50 point alpha for that weight. 28 + 6 Tons of AC 20 + Ammo will get you a 40 point Alpha.


On the other hand those Ballistics can often keep firing, long after the Energy build has hit it's heat cap and needs to back off.


It's not perfect, tweak should be made - but it's not as cut and dry as you make it out.

[Kain Demos]

Fierostetz, on 10 October 2014 - 09:33 AM, said:

While that mitigates FLD somewhat, and makes mechs easier to kill, it *also* has the unintended consequences of making it FAR more difficult for lights, and any non-fld weapons. Gunnery skill is a variable that can't be balanced. Some people just shoot better than others. Balancing the game to mitigate the top-tier shooters means life gets harder for everyone else... but the top-tier shooters are *still* going to kill quicker. Built-in training like America's Army, maybe with cbill or MC bounses for qualifying, beating self-scores, etc. might encourage people to practice, and could ultimately bring the overall gunnery skill of the community up to a point where the playing field is more level. Don't focus on bringing the top-end down, try to bring the bottom-end up.

I'd prefer nothing but there seems to be a lot of complaining of "PPFLD" and "TTK too low" with damage nerfs, heat nerfs, hardpoint nerfs, etc all being discussed. If they made armor values 150% of what they currently are I could at least live with that vs all these heavy nerfs being discussed.

Hell, it would almost be worht it because then maybe some of the worse off weapons could actually get the buffs they need.

Edited by Kain Thul, 10 October 2014 - 09:42 AM.

[Clit Beastwood]

FupDup, on 10 October 2014 - 09:32 AM, said:

Note that convergence solutions don't necessarily need to be literally random hit locations. There's only like 1-2 guys on this forum that support that idea (I won't name the main one to avoiding invoking his presence...). Most other ideas, however, maintain the ability to aim to some extent.

My own favorite is Homeless Bill's, which basically lets you fire small groups/individual guns perfectly accurate like right now, but when you try to fire a huge alpha then the weapons don't converge and fire parallel to their mounting locations.

:shrug: people can keep proposing nerfs to aiming/weapons, all it's going to do is whittle down the player base with more incomprehensible mechanics that aren't documented. I honestly believe that pilot training and education, if available from day one of open beta, would have mitigated something like 75% of the posts on the mwo forums. Again, it feels like a long-term identity crisis. This is the problem with "early access F2P" games. By the time it goes open to the public, so many players are already really good at it and chase all the new guys off, then the game is altered to lower the barrier to entry, which makes the game easier for long-term players, which chases off the new guys. A spit into arcade/sim modes would be cool too. Arcade mode with more simplistic mechanics.. maybe even solo queue only, then sim mode with solo/group queues? Drastically reduced cbill earnings in arcade mode (or just call it cbill bonuses for simulator mode) to encourage people to "graduate" from arcade mode. Whatever, I'm rambling and my mind is wandering (I'm on meds - woooooo!). I try to adopt noobs on teamspeak and show them the ropes, and the biggest frustrations for them seem to be poor- or un-documented mechanics, and being dropped into the pool driving trial mechs against multi-year veterans.

[Xtrekker]

They've taken Mechwarrior and turned it into a twitch shooter. Clans overly-enforced that. I personally like the feeling of being in a huge, lumbering hunk of metal that takes a lot of hits. And taking a lot of hits doesn't mean you are wandering around out in the middle of an open field. The result is that it simply doesn't feel right.

Unfortunately, "twitch shooter" knocks a lot of vets out, and MW/BT has a lot of vets. And vets have a lot of money along with a love for the IP.

Before you flame me for that, know that this has been my personal experience with my old teammates who were finally disgusted with the meta-humping one-shot-wonders and just left the game. These are guys who played for years together. Yes, it's a beautiful game, and it's fun when you can twitch hit that same side torso repeatedly from 600m away, especially when your buddies can do the same. But it's completely unforgiving for anyone who isn't on that level. For them it is stepping into a blender, and they are only going to do that so many times before they say *&^% it.

[Clit Beastwood]

Ultimatum X, on 10 October 2014 - 09:37 AM, said:

Energy weapons very consistently put out much larger alpha potential for much lower weight and crit slots.

For 16 tons a Timber Wolf Laser Vomit build can put out a 51 point alpha.

True, at the cost of greater exposure and heat.

ALSO - laser weapons bring that old bugbear... "hit detection". Hitscan weapons currently have rubbish hit detection for some players. My personal hit detection is great for ballistics everywhere, terrible for hitscan weapons from home, downright heroic for hitscan weapons from my dad's house or my office where I've occasionally played while eating lunch... Online gaming is maddening

Xtrekker, on 10 October 2014 - 09:43 AM, said:

They've taken Mechwarrior and turned it into a twitch shooter. Clans overly-enforced that. I personally like the feeling of being in a huge, lumbering hunk of metal that takes a lot of hits. And taking a lot of hits doesn't mean you are wandering around out in the middle of an open field. The result is that it simply doesn't feel right.

Unfortunately, "twitch shooter" knocks a lot of vets out, and MW/BT has a lot of vets. And vets have a lot of money along with a love for the IP.

Before you flame me for that, know that this has been my personal experience with my old teammates who were finally disgusted with the meta-humping one-shot-wonders and just left the game. These are guys who played for years together. Yes, it's a beautiful game, and it's fun when you can twitch hit that same side torso repeatedly from 600m away, especially when your buddies can do the same. But it's completely unforgiving for anyone who isn't on that level. For them it is stepping into a blender, and they are only going to do that so many times before they say *&^% it.

How old are you? I'm just wondering if it has something to do with diminishing reflexes. Call of duty vs. 12 year olds comes to mind - those kids are *fast* (and they have really dirty mouths!).