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#21 FupDup

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Posted 25 December 2014 - 12:47 PM

View PostKoniving, on 25 December 2014 - 12:19 PM, said:

TT is more one weapon fired at a time, at a possibly moving target, while possibly moving, all the while applying other factors like heat, the human element, etc.
...

Bolded and underlined the part that you probably made up.

To be frank, a giant walking 100 ton death robot should have the ability to fire two Small Lasers or Machine Guns simultaneously, period. They don't necessarily have to hit the same spot instantly, but they damn well should be able to be fired. Otherwise it wouldn't make a very effective war machine would it? I fully expect a titanic fusion-powered death machine to have that ability.

Rolling your dice for one weapon at a time doesn't literally mean that enormous combat machines aren't powerful enough to fire 2+ guns at one time. It's just a limitation of the human player playing the board game, because rolling for multiple guns at a time might get hard to keep track of.

Also, an easy way to simplify that is to just buy a plastic, transparent container with compartments in it, and put two dice in each compartment. Then, shake the whole box to perform multiple to-hit rolls in one swoop. Even just using your own hands you can throw one pair with your left hand and another pair with your right hand.

Posted Image

Edited by FupDup, 25 December 2014 - 12:48 PM.


#22 Kirkland Langue

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Posted 25 December 2014 - 01:15 PM

There are 2 answers which I tend to prefer:
1. Not more Armor - More STRUCTURE, or HP for internals.
2. Alternatively, Having a weapon accuracy rating for all balistics and lasers - similar to how WOT has some variance on where your shot will actually land.

#23 BeardedGlass

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Posted 25 December 2014 - 02:10 PM

Or, we could make it so damage transference isn't a thing, like in MechWarrior 4 Mercenaries. If I remember right, you could lose a side torso and your arm wouldn't fly off into the nearest Locust.

Sure, wouldn't stop you from getting torso cored but some of your firepower wouldn't vaporize off either.

I'm not sure if its a completely accurate comparison, but its like if you get shot in the lung, and your arm stops working for some reason.

I know mechs aren't human, but it didn't make sense to me to have a war machine set up with that large of a flaw. Just shoot a side torso off, and 50% of it's weapons are disabled.

I remember in MechWarrior 4 that the mechs were very tanky and hard to kill. (If you didn't have 2 heavy Gauss rifles)

#24 LordKnightFandragon

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Posted 25 December 2014 - 02:52 PM

View PostKoniving, on 25 December 2014 - 12:16 PM, said:


IS Quirks is the lit cigar dropped on the powder keg.

Your solution is to pour gasoline on it.

Stand back for a second, and consider dowsing it with water before the whole place explodes.
Quite simply, mechs need to deliver Less Damage.

How to go about this? Quite simply they can either fire more frequently while doing much less, or fire less frequently while doing about the same per shot.



Its why PGI should have followed TT. TT did its maths the way it did and it worked there for years. Yet now PGI thinks they really need to change what works, and its totally not working all that well.

What we need is to deal current damage, or closer to TT damage, while firing less frequently, able to fire less massive loads of firepower all at once. Firing less damage a bit slower and needing to time shots and actually worry about heat will solve the people who QQ about lights being 1 shot all the time. It will solve the issue of Assaults feeling like Paper mache, it will encourage balanced builds, it will encourage better heat efficiency builds over as much damage as one can pack.

Firing less, will leave lights less able to so effectively circle jerk an assault so effortlessly. The poor Dire Whale might feel like an assault mech again. It will sway the firepower advantage entirely back in the right direction of Light/Medium/Heavy/Assault. Lights might have a few guns, but they dont neccessarily have the heat to effectively fire them all...lowering their damage output to more of a light lvl. Assaults will still have to space shots and such, but with more heat dissipation will actually get to be more Assault mechs...able to lead a charge and NOT melt in 2 seconds. They will have the firepower advantage going into a fight. Heavies will be just behind assaults with mediums being the first ones on the scene, forming the battlelines and then the other units follow it up.

Slower firing would also help some of the mechs who dont carry 18 hardpoints in each section more viable, as you cant effectively fire more then 1 or 2 guns at a time anyway. Mechs like the Summoner and Warhawk will be alot more viable. Summoner Prime, it only carried 3 guns cuz thats all it really needed. a 15dmg puncher, a short-mid range low heat follow up and a Long range indirect fire support weapon. ITs Prime is actually a perfectly balanced mech. MWO's heat system and obsession over 80pt PPFLD has skewed it all to hell...

Also, a lower heatscale will drag the game out for its full 15 minutes(They last avg of 5 minutes now??), not every enemy mech might be dead in every game. Maybe people would actually spread out more if they knew rounding a corner wont mean instant death. The game might become more fluid and fun. More of the map might be used, the deathball might subside a bit. We could have rewards adjusted to make up for the lost damage from firing less.

And a lower heat scale, less firing will help ease the new players into the game, as not every battle they come into is a hail storm of 90dmg downing them in 3 seconds flat, resulting in them not learning a damn thing in game and ending in them just quitting cuz the game is no fun.....

Its time we get the heat scale lowered and reworked, we need less overall firepower used in games, not more armor.

Edited by LordKnightFandragon, 25 December 2014 - 03:00 PM.


#25 Wintersdark

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Posted 25 December 2014 - 03:00 PM

View PostBeardedGlass, on 25 December 2014 - 02:10 PM, said:

Or, we could make it so damage transference isn't a thing, like in MechWarrior 4 Mercenaries. If I remember right, you could lose a side torso and your arm wouldn't fly off into the nearest Locust.

Sure, wouldn't stop you from getting torso cored but some of your firepower wouldn't vaporize off either.

I'm not sure if its a completely accurate comparison, but its like if you get shot in the lung, and your arm stops working for some reason.

I know mechs aren't human, but it didn't make sense to me to have a war machine set up with that large of a flaw. Just shoot a side torso off, and 50% of it's weapons are disabled.

I remember in MechWarrior 4 that the mechs were very tanky and hard to kill. (If you didn't have 2 heavy Gauss rifles)

Well, to be fair, break someone's collarbone and see how well they use their arm. Side torso destruction is damage well past "shot in the lung", it's after extreme, heavy damage over multiple impacts. Totally wreck the side torso, and it's extremely likely the mechanisms for the shoulder are damaged, as is control circuitry for the lower arm. Doesn't matter if the arm itself is entirely intact if the part of the machine it's attached to is destroyed. Just keeps repair costs down :)

#26 LordKnightFandragon

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Posted 25 December 2014 - 03:07 PM

View PostBeardedGlass, on 25 December 2014 - 02:10 PM, said:

Or, we could make it so damage transference isn't a thing, like in MechWarrior 4 Mercenaries. If I remember right, you could lose a side torso and your arm wouldn't fly off into the nearest Locust.

Sure, wouldn't stop you from getting torso cored but some of your firepower wouldn't vaporize off either.

I'm not sure if its a completely accurate comparison, but its like if you get shot in the lung, and your arm stops working for some reason.

I know mechs aren't human, but it didn't make sense to me to have a war machine set up with that large of a flaw. Just shoot a side torso off, and 50% of it's weapons are disabled.

I remember in MechWarrior 4 that the mechs were very tanky and hard to kill. (If you didn't have 2 heavy Gauss rifles)



You shoot off the side torso, you destroy the internal structure which contains ammo bins, heat sinks, inner workings of the engine, some of the components to the weapons in the arms. You bet your tail blowing off a Side torso would render your weapons in the connected arms destroyed.

Getting shot in the lung once wont keep your arm from working, but it will break ribs, splinter around, cause severe internal bleeding. If you get shot multiple times your entire section of your body will be in such disarray, you might be unable to more your arm. There are nerves and everything running everywhere, not unlike a mech. They have musculature and all that running all throughout the mech.

#27 crustydog

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Posted 25 December 2014 - 03:44 PM

Another possibility would be to double the weapon cooldown... cuts the rate of fire in half...

I would like to try it for a week just to live test it and see.

#28 LordKnightFandragon

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Posted 25 December 2014 - 03:45 PM

View Postcrustydog, on 25 December 2014 - 03:44 PM, said:

Another possibility would be to double the weapon cooldown... cuts the rate of fire in half...

I would like to try it for a week just to live test it and see.



That only adds a few seconds before the players can lolpha again. It wouldnt change much at all really.

#29 CocoaJin

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Posted 25 December 2014 - 05:33 PM

I'd like to see some dynamic reticle bloom and some light dispersion.

As an extreme experiment in BT Lore based gameplay, I'd also entertain the idea of seeing all ballistics travel 1200m, but have recoil and dispersion for the rounds that equate to an accuracy/chance to hit that favors TT max ranges. So an AC20 round would travel 1200m, but the burst fire would cause so much reticle bloom and dispersion due to recoil, that your best chance to hit would be for targets within 250-300m...not that you couldn't hit a target at 800m, it would just be extremely hard.

#30 LordKnightFandragon

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Posted 25 December 2014 - 06:38 PM

View PostCocoaJin, on 25 December 2014 - 05:33 PM, said:

I'd like to see some dynamic reticle bloom and some light dispersion.

As an extreme experiment in BT Lore based gameplay, I'd also entertain the idea of seeing all ballistics travel 1200m, but have recoil and dispersion for the rounds that equate to an accuracy/chance to hit that favors TT max ranges. So an AC20 round would travel 1200m, but the burst fire would cause so much reticle bloom and dispersion due to recoil, that your best chance to hit would be for targets within 250-300m...not that you couldn't hit a target at 800m, it would just be extremely hard.



If were going to have dispersion, it should be only because of recoil, not because the gun decides to randomly throw the shots in w/e odd angle it wants to.

#31 Clydewinder

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Posted 25 December 2014 - 06:43 PM

Short TTK is a side-effect of MWO game modes where deathball is always the best tactic.

#32 InspectorG

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Posted 25 December 2014 - 07:14 PM

View PostYeonne Greene, on 25 December 2014 - 09:32 AM, said:


The zerg also wouldn't be able to sustain fire on the generator at the rate they do now. I'd say the impact on zerging would be a wash.


They would likely have an easier time getting to the generator/omega.

#33 Y E O N N E

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Posted 25 December 2014 - 09:55 PM

Not necessarily. Gauss still generate no heat at all and ballistics generate very little. Those are the types of weapons you need to bring on defense to stop a rush because they deliver damage up front and run cool enough to let you jump from leg to leg with no break.

The real killer for teams in CW is lack of co-ordination, not rushes.

#34 mogs01gt

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Posted 25 December 2014 - 10:01 PM

View PostCharles Seneca, on 25 December 2014 - 05:13 AM, said:

As weapons have gradually become more and more powerful in an attempt to balance them, mech longevity under fire has slowly but surely been deteriorating.

Rather than being giant, heavily armoured war machines, mechs feel like they are made from paper mache. Ironically, this is more true the heavier the mech is, with light mechs suffering least
due to their small size, speed and rubbish hit reg and assault mechs suffering most due to their large size and lack of mobility.

The onset of IS quirks has simply exacerbated the problem. In a nutshell, MECHS NEED MORE ARMOUR! Except light mechs which need a miracle in order to hit them... but that's another story.

I swear my install is bugged. My Summoner and TBR are completely worthless to pilot. Cant take any hits at all without lossing all armor. I've reset both mechs(removing ALL requipement) and they still get destroyed from a few hits. I can hop in my Cent or Crow and tank for days. I was in a match where my armor was yellow, got cored from 4MLs... WTF, it should have took multiple hits from that before turning red.

WTF is going on?

#35 Nothing Whatsoever

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Posted 25 December 2014 - 11:02 PM

What I'd like is to also look to scale weapons and heat according to TT benchmarks. That includes setting 30 Heat Capacity with Heat Effects including the first Shutdown at 14 heat, and where it may even be possible to restore armor levels back to TT levels, if the adjustments work out well enough (but first I want to test the changes to Weapons and Heat Capacity with existing quirks before readjusting Armor).

In my free time, I've looked at how TT values could be better translated into a real-time environment and I came up with this table for both Clan and IS:
Posted Image

The way the table is setup is that by adjusting the number of shots made in a 10 second period, the table can generate derived stats for Damage, Heat, Cooldown and so on. So increasing or decreasing the number of shots modifies the related values.

Initially I thought it interesting to having long range ballistic weapons potentially be 'Sniper' style weapons that can front-load damage at range and where most weapons trade range for DPS (and values can easily be adjusted as necessary, since I consider this a third draft anyway!).

So Combining these values with the original Heat Table should more stock builds able to be heat efficient with the original table (and maybe even to original dissipation rates like true external dubs) and has the possibility of having the first avoidable shut down at 14 heat as in the original; with a max cap of 30 for an automatic shutdown. And most Existing Quirks should be able to remain with tweaks to their Percent boosts as necessary.

Here is the Heat Effects table I've looked at previously that would be used:
Spoiler


So looking at a four ER Larger Laser build on a Timberwolf, firing all four would deal 10 damage, generate 12 heat and be at 85.7% Heat to the first avoidable shutdown (14). With 24 current and unmodified DHS, it would dissipate 3.96 heat per second, requiring at least ~3 seconds to alpha for 10 damage again. And with a shorter cooldown than three seconds, can chain fire the weapons after or if Dissipation is using true dubs (4.8 a second or current 2x Basic from Eliting 4.55 with 24 DHS).

Compared to the current weapon values, firing four can deal 44 damage, generating 59.2 Heat and be at 70.9% of its 83.52 Heat Cap. If we are are looking at a fully Elited mech it would dissipate 4.55 Heat a second and require about ~8 seconds to fire all four together again.

A second example taking the stock Awesome 8Q if it were to keep its current quirks, could fire three PPCs dealing 15 damage, generating 11.25 Heat ~80.3% of 14 Heat. With 28 SHS it would need about ~3 seconds to dissipate heat to fire all three again (depending on if Heat Scale applies) and it would only be able to fire every 5 seconds with its cooldown at 5 seconds and could sustain firing all three together until it's third alpha after ~15 seconds of sustained fire.

Compared to the same build with MWO values, if it fires all three it deals 30 damage, generating ~35.1 heat ~60% of its 58 Heat Cap. With 28 SHS it would need about ~4.5 seconds to fire all three again.




Heat Scale (Ghost Heat) could remain in play and apply a penalty reducing the number of weapons that can be fired together (with tweaked values) but ideally, testing would show that it could be unnecessary to keep around in the future if we get closer to TT Weapon and Heat benchmarks.

And Impulse values and their hit effects for Individual Projectiles still need reductions in most cases to avoid stun-locking opponents as then can currently do.

#36 LORD ORION

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Posted 25 December 2014 - 11:19 PM

TTK is too low, as a result it benefits ganging up on mechs.

Getting bushwacked by 3 mechs happens, but the problem is you've done nothing to hurt them and they blown you to pieces.

I'd start with
Normal Armor Values
Double Internal Structure
When a component is "destroyed" the first time, it goes offline for 5 seconds. (and can't be damage again) when it is "destroyed" a second time it is actually destroyed.

That would go a long way for TTK balance (you might still survive doing something stupid) letting you actually hurt a mech when you get the drop on them. (you ambush a direwolf and knock several of its weapons offline, giving you enough time to manuver and hide before it can return fire)

Edited by LORD ORION, 25 December 2014 - 11:21 PM.


#37 Y E O N N E

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Posted 26 December 2014 - 01:43 AM

I think a more elegant solution to the TTK problem is a much more restricted heat cap (range 25 to 45, incrementing by 5 every 100 points in engine size), full 2.0 HPS dissipation on DHS, and the removal of ghost heat.

Combine this with a bloom mechanic that reduces or slows convergence as a function of motion, and I think you've got it about done.

#38 MeiSooHaityu

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Posted 26 December 2014 - 04:09 AM

TTK seems ok to me. Can be a bit short, but overall I think it is solid where it is at.

#39 Mudhutwarrior

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Posted 26 December 2014 - 07:23 AM

I think we are where we need to be for just about everyone. My issue is not to nerf anything or buff anything but instead work to keep the exploiters in check. Adding voip will help and making synch drops a bannable offense would be next.

And don't tell me there isnt synch drops. My team does it daily to educate the solos out there so they can be aware and spot it when it happens. Its great when we do it and the other side admits they did to. I just add the disclaimer we sychn drop to educate they synch drop to exploit/cheat.

That does more to discourage new players than anything else I have seen in 15,000+ matches

#40 Sigmar Sich

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Posted 26 December 2014 - 08:57 AM

About armor and structure.
I believe game needs increased mech's structure hitpoints. I liked TTK more, when there was 8vs8. Correct me if i'm wrong, but i don't remember increased armor and structure after 12vs12 launched. It should been x1.5, to keep mechs longevity same.
But, i think, we dont need increased armor. Instead, better to increase only structure hitpoints to x2 rate. This way we both increasing mechs' longevity, and making enough room for critical hits (especially when/if we get crits for actuators, engine, gyro, etc.), destroyed weapons and equipment.

About heatsinks.
I believe heatsinks long time needed rebalance. If i remember correctly, this should happened with clan release. But better late then never..
I think game needs change for some parameters. In short - Mechs' base heatcapacity should be decreased to 10 (instead of 30). Heatsinks heatcapacity should be 2.0 both for SHS and DHS, and all DHS should have same rate. Heat dissipation remains 1.0 and 2.0 per heatsink respectively (and all DHS have same rates). Examples and calculations you can see here.
This rebalance, beside of setting some excuse for balance between SHS and DHS, particulary helps in awoiding huge alpha strikes spam.

About weapon convergence.
This is hard case. Some treatments could be worse than illness.
I thinks, there could be solution, if weapons suffer similar (though lesser) effect to jump jets, when mech is moving. When mech stands still - weapon fire where aimed. No cone of fire for the weapons, but aim penalty for speedy movement. This effect dependent on mech speed. On low speeds it almost absent. Medium speed makes sniping harder. High speeds makes shots hard even on medium ranges.
So if you want make a good shot - you should aim. Not hop out of cover for a half of second, burp your pinpoint alpha, and get back to cover. Nor you cant pinpoint shots at full speed. I believe this is good, when mechs will have combat speed, which differs from maximal speed.
But this is raw suggestion, and needs more thinking.





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