38 replies to this topic

[Sjorpha]

Ultimax, on 28 February 2016 - 10:35 PM, said:

I didn't say "shorter" I said "smaller".

The Nova should not end up smaller than the Hunchback (or have significantly smaller STs) - if that means the Hunchback is also scaled down to compensate, then that's fine.

In the town hall Russ said they are doing a volumetric scale pass on all the mechs in the game, it will take a while but every mech in the game will be correctly scaled once it's done.

[Lily from animove]

Sjorpha, on 29 February 2016 - 05:17 AM, said:

In the town hall Russ said they are doing a volumetric scale pass on all the mechs in the game, it will take a while but every mech in the game will be correctly scaled once it's done.

this could create again more balance issues, if the SCR would be suddnely NVA size again, well then bb any balance attemp. Only mechs needing this for balance should get those treatments. Not generally every. because the PGI does again "across the board" changes which never helped balance.

Not even sure if I want my hunchback smaller, this means issues with shooting over stuff. a mech with high mountpoints is a good thing, making it small may suck at many places. Hill humping is a nice thing.

Edited by Lily from animove, 29 February 2016 - 08:10 AM.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Ultimax, on 28 February 2016 - 07:00 PM, said:

I'm waiting to see what they do with the rest of the mechs, but hopefully it won't actually be smaller than a Hunchback when everything is done - because that would be dumb.

A full rescale pass is going to be a double edged sword. Many mechs will be shrunk, some will remain the same, and some will grow in size. Not everyone will be happy when all is said and done.

I too hope the Hunchback doesn't grow in size, but it is a humanoid mech that is practically the same height as many aircraft style torso/chicken-waker mechs (that are notoriously shorter than humanoids by design). Don't be surprised if the Hunchback grows a tiny bit in size.

I don't think the Hunchback would grow very much if it even did. I'd expect more humanoid mediums being shrunk more than anything else.

[thehiddenedge]

Lily from animove, on 29 February 2016 - 02:54 AM, said:

broke the lore of SCR and NVA using he same legs.

well the TT Nova's arms and legs used the same pivot point, so they've changed a lot more than that.

I think it looks much better now, though yeah, that cockpit is tiny... Hopefully the 55 tonners get a similar treatment, because all of them are too tall.

MeiSooHaityu, on 29 February 2016 - 05:40 AM, said:

I don't think the Hunchback would grow very much if it even did. I'd expect more humanoid mediums being shrunk more than anything else.

I think I remember Russ saying that the Hunchback was a pretty good example of correct size in the town hall, so I don't imagine it changing very much either.

Edited by thehiddenedge, 29 February 2016 - 05:53 AM.

[Tennex]

Its really not terrible next to kit fox... but that being said, kit fox was one of the top 4 to b voted for rescale, so i'm sure it'll be shurnk at the same time the small nova comes out

[MeiSooHaityu]

thehiddenedge, on 29 February 2016 - 05:49 AM, said:

I think I remember Russ saying that the Hunchback was a pretty good example of correct size in the town hall, so I don't imagine it changing very much either.

That's good to hear. I am a Hunchback 4P pilot afterall

[FupDup]

Lily from animove, on 29 February 2016 - 05:29 AM, said:

this could create again more balance issues, if the SCR would be suddnely NVA size again, well then bb any balance attemp. Only emchs needing this for balance should get those treatments. Not generally every. because the PGI does again "across the board" changes which never helped balance.

Not even sure if I want my hunchback smaller, this means issues with shooting over stuff. a mech with high mountpoints is a good thing, making it small may suck at many places. Hill humping is a nice thing.

On this note, Russ thinks that the Dire Whale is too big.

Yup, I'm being completely serious on that.

Normalize ALL the things, amirite?

[Mechteric]

like like like

[FupDup]

Tennex, on 29 February 2016 - 07:03 AM, said:

Its really not terrible next to kit fox... but that being said, kit fox was one of the top 4 to b voted for rescale, so i'm sure it'll be shurnk at the same time the small nova comes out

The Cute Fox just got sadder.

[Kira Onime]

[MeiSooHaityu]

This Nova resize pic makes me curious how far they are going with the Catapult? With my luck, it probably is getting bigger :/

[Lily from animove]

FupDup, on 29 February 2016 - 07:07 AM, said:

On this note, Russ thinks that the Dire Whale is too big.

Yup, I'm being completely serious on that.

Normalize ALL the things, amirite?

But it is, look a whale is flat and long, direwahle is high and short, so of course totally the opposite of a whale, therefore needs to be fixed. At least, this is a kind of logic to look at things. :derp:

Edited by Lily from animove, 29 February 2016 - 08:14 AM.

[Gas Guzzler]

cazidin, on 28 February 2016 - 08:23 PM, said:

TBH, i'm concerned about what they'll do to the Marauder or the Black Knight. They fall a bit short of the 75 ton average according to that scale. If they enlarge the arms of the latter it could become tankier though...

What scale? The pixel counting scale was confirmed debunked. Volume is the end all be all.

Consider a piece of sheet metal with a sheet metal cruciform extruded out from it. Compare that to a solid piece of steel with the same exterior dimensions. The pixel counts will be identical, but the mass will be astronomically different. This is an extreme case to illustrate why counting pixels doesn't tell the entire story, but you get the idea.

[cazidin]

FupDup, on 29 February 2016 - 07:07 AM, said:

On this note, Russ thinks that the Dire Whale is too big.

Yup, I'm being completely serious on that.

Normalize ALL the things, amirite?

To be fair, that CT is a damage blackhole from which no light or enemy fire can escape. It's a large, barely mobile target and I guess a resize is easier than adjusting the hitboxes or quirking it for a lil bit more agility.

[Lily from animove]

cazidin, on 29 February 2016 - 08:19 AM, said:

To be fair, that CT is a damage blackhole from which no light or enemy fire can escape. It's a large, barely mobile target and I guess a resize is easier than adjusting the hitboxes or quirking it for a lil bit more agility.

they tried adjusting hitboxes, but lest be honest the mech is too wide to oever adjust any hitboxes, either oversoued CT or overized ST's. That is a unchangable feature of the TT Nova designs. The only fix would be quirks or making an entire different mehc out of the NVA, which isn't very good at all when you name it Nova. The fact of it getting a torso to twist is already a borderline change making it looks a bit like a supernova Nova crossbreed (it's a cool one, yet truly taking Nova flair away)

Edited by Lily from animove, 29 February 2016 - 08:28 AM.

[FupDup]

cazidin, on 29 February 2016 - 08:19 AM, said:

To be fair, that CT is a damage blackhole from which no light or enemy fire can escape. It's a large, barely mobile target and I guess a resize is easier than adjusting the hitboxes or quirking it for a lil bit more agility.

It's funny to me because before the global Clan nerfs like laser range and skill tree had a snowball effect, the Dire Whale was the absolute king of the assault class.

It's also funny that the Warhawk wasn't mentioned at all for scaling, even though it's THE EXACT SAME SIZE as the Dire Whale but has less tonnage. The Warhawk is pretty much the Whalehawk in terms of physical appearance...

Edited by FupDup, 29 February 2016 - 09:18 AM.

[Lugh]

Saint Scarlett Johan, on 28 February 2016 - 10:20 PM, said:

I feel like it should be based more on a "it feels the right size" when comparing two mechs. If we tried to base it on reality, we'd be in a bucket of worms. Just look at the M4A3E8 "Easy 8" compared to a Tiger I. Easy 8: -6.25m long -3.00m wide -2.97m tall -33.7 metric tons (loaded) -turret armor F/S/R: 76mm/50mm/64mm (often with an extra 38mm plate added as turret 'cheeks' and a 50mm mantlet) -hull armor F/S/R: 76mm/45mm/38mm Tiger I: -6.32m long -3.56m wide -3.00m tall -55.5 metric tonnes (loaded) -turret armor F/S/R: 100mm/80mm/80mm w/120mm mantlet -hull armor F/S/R: 100mm/60mm/40mm The tanks are pretty close to the same size, but are drastically different in weight. With the Tiger being considered an "Atlas" of sorts while the Sherman is more comparable to a "Catapult" EDIT: Fun Fact: The angling of the armor on an Easy Eight of 47 degrees meant it's cross section was closer to 120mm thick of vertical steel performance. Meaning it's easier to penetrate the hull of Tiger Tank than an Easy Eight Sherman from the front.

Which didn't really matter because the German 88 Crews were smart enough to hit top left of the Sherman Hull at angles (>40degrees?) that allowed penetrations to hit ammo stores directly which contributed to the knick name of the Ronson, as it tended to explode the whole thing.

Let's just ignore the fact that the Germans were destroying Shermans at a 4.5 to 1 ratio compared to their own tanks (all varieties) and that american tank crews were so inept at target id's, that they though all Panthers were Tigers, etc.

The weaknesses of the enemies equipment the Germans just knew, would make the Dragon a better comparison (it's hard to miss that CT[though the Catapult before they fixed the Head hit box was super easy to kill too]).

[FupDup]

Saint Scarlett Johan, on 28 February 2016 - 10:20 PM, said:

I feel like it should be based more on a "it feels the right size" when comparing two mechs.

If we tried to base it on reality, we'd be in a bucket of worms. Just look at the M4A3E8 "Easy 8" compared to a Tiger I.

I've held the position for a while that game balance should be more "qualitative" than "quantitative." Numbers can be used a tool in the process, but I don't think that they should be the end-all-be-all.

MWO has already had problems with this in the various "normalization" passes where in many cases weapons got smashed into the ground for the single reason of making them line up on an Excel spreadsheet.

In a tiny number of cases it even resulted in super buffs like the Clan LPL, because of the "unbreakable" rule that a Large-class pulse laser "always must at all costs" deal +2 damage compared to its standard/ER counterpart.

Back to mech scaling, doing pure volume might result in some mechs getting unnecessarily nerfed. One thing that a lot of forumites like to argue is "OMG those lights are too tiny brah, my Excel sheet says so! Make em all BIGGER!" If they had their way, such large targets combined with low armor and structure values would result in a useless weight class. Some lights like the Jenner IIC are absurdly fragile as it is, now imagine scaling its size bigger...

Some people also use that same argument to justify medium mech scaling such as the 55-tonners...


TL;DR: Normalization doesn't account for all facets of game balance, and will thus fail in many circumstances.

1453 R, on 28 February 2016 - 10:37 PM, said:

Realize: the "this feels right" system is what the modelers have been using thus far. It's what resulted in a Nova that required an 18% global rescale, which has to be something like a 40 to 50% or greater reduction in actual volume. I don't know the math, but dayum.

Who is the person that felt the Kit Fox feels right?

Edited by FupDup, 29 February 2016 - 10:08 AM.

[JC Daxion]

Re-size is the best thing PGI has done to help with balance next to quirks.. Quirks are not perfect, but quirks helped tons of mechs be viable.. This is going to be even bigger! Errr Smaller.. errr you know what i mean