93 replies to this topic

[Karl Streiger]

Kroete, on 14 September 2016 - 11:18 PM, said:

Do you also have the mechs the data was collected with and has you also taken the quirks in your calculation?

Example:
Butterbee with 2x lrm 15
C1 with 2x lrm 15

We have the same weapon, but its different, one has 20% more rof and 10% more velocity basing on the mech its installed.


To make worthwhile data for microbalancing you need to remove the influence of the quirks.
Did you do that? And how?

Thats why i say, balancing is impossible with quirks influencing weapons.
Quirks can be applied to mechs that need them after basic balancing weapons.

Another point, you also need to put dot in your formular.
(DOT = damage over time, beamduration, pinpoint ac vs multishot-ac, ...).

No of course I can't take the quirk influence out of the calculation.

Thats why I only take the "average damage" (for example the LRMs have a 15-20% average damage, while PPCs have 60% average damage) and keep the other values (heat; rate of fire) in the formula

So the formula is based before quirks are applied.
DoT or PP is imporant for the Window of Engagement - otherwise it is already in the damage: for example C-ER-Large Laser have the best accuracy of all weapons in the game (considering that you hit something) ~80%; BUT out of this only a fraction of damage is dealt so the average damage of the C-ER-Large Laser is ~ 40%-45%

So I would calculate with this value (5.4dmg) as the base.
The burn duration now only has effect on the window of engagement. For example in the 0.5sec Window the CER only deals 1.8dmg - while for example the ISPPC with 6.4dmg average damage deals 6.4dmg in this WoE
Alpha weapons might have a good WoE1 value but start to become worse in longer WoEs (i think i did use 6 different WoEs: 0.3sec; 1sec; 3sec; 6sec; 10sec; 20sec)

the next steps include tonnage, heat sinks for this weapon (for time frame X), critical spaces, ammunition (for time frame X) - this is the load value. Range is also to be considered

when the sum of the average damage multiplied with the WoE factors divided by the load value is equal - micro balance is achieved.
It would be simpler when you had more values (like different range brackets (could also be to move the "effective range" but modify the extreme range by according values (1.5-6)

Of course there is another effect - the boating effect. because 1 MLAS vs 1 Large Laser is one thing; 5 MLAS vs 1 Large Laser is something different

Edited by Karl Streiger, 15 September 2016 - 12:12 AM.

[Kroete]

Sounds ok for me,
but reduced beamduration or increased velocity increases the accuracy of a weapon.
I dont know how you can compensate that whitout taking the used mechs and quirks for cellecting your data in it, but i also understand thats to much work to sort it out, so taking the average is ok.
(Thats why i say quirks dont help in basebalance)

And now i am sure that they dont unterstand what you are talking about.

Edited by Kroete, 15 September 2016 - 12:31 AM.

[Almond Brown]

Gas Guzzler, on 14 September 2016 - 08:26 AM, said:

That's cool and all but it also has to be fun to play and balanced.

"Balanced" - One Mech, one weight class, same armor value, same engine size, same weapons load-out.
There done.
Now go and have your FUN! LOL!

[Jetfire]

Alistair Winter, on 13 September 2016 - 05:07 PM, said:

I don't understand this new approach. Why is this happening now, and why didn't it happen before? And when is the PTS jump jet edition starting? Because I'd like to participate in that.

My guess is they finally got themselves in a place were they have the time and energy to try to do more than just patch on the fly and are trying to really focus hard on testing stuff they have had in the back of their minds while more pressing matters were in the works. Really this is something they should have ideally been doing aggressively a long time ago but better late than never and the PTS is the perfect place to mess around.

[BLOOD WOLF]

Jetfire, on 15 September 2016 - 08:41 AM, said:

My guess is they finally got themselves in a place were they have the time and energy to try to do more than just patch on the fly and are trying to really focus hard on testing stuff they have had in the back of their minds while more pressing matters were in the works. Really this is something they should have ideally been doing aggressively a long time ago but better late than never and the PTS is the perfect place to mess around.

except people still flip when values are changed.

[rolly]

Alistair Winter, on 13 September 2016 - 05:07 PM, said:

...
That being said... I don't understand why and how this is happening. You have to understand, this is a relatively small test involving a relatively small portion of the player population, and it's going to effectively have hundreds of changes (both major and minor) implemented in one huge swoop when this thing hits the live server...
Suddenly they're making dozens of changes in every iteration of the PTS build....
Why is it suddenly now a viable approach to look at the numbers from a public test server where 10-20 people are playing every day (out of a ~50,000 total population, probably) and use this data to make so many vast, rapid changes?

I don't understand this new approach. Why is this happening now, and why didn't it happen before? And when is the PTS jump jet edition starting? Because I'd like to participate in that.

This seems to all point to long term drop in revenue. It's like a drastic shake up and shakedown of the player base before job cuts.

[Deathlike]

BLOOD WOLF, on 14 September 2016 - 11:27 PM, said:

This game does need a bigger marketing move. Can't argue with that assessment.

Marketing doesn't help a game that has a terrible New Player Experience (NPE). It's effectively a sieve for trying to keep people around.

When it comes to marketing, there's a price per player (usually referred to acquisition cost or something like that - the cost of acquiring a customer) when you advertise. If that value is too high, what you're doing thru advertising is not profitable.

Of course, that still requires the NPE to not suck as a starting change required.

Edited by Deathlike, 15 September 2016 - 11:44 AM.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Thats ok, neither do they

Alistair Winter, on 13 September 2016 - 05:07 PM, said:

of important minor stuff, like buffing single heat sinks, increasing gauss rifle cooldown, removing override damage to the head component, increasing SRM missile spread, reducing skill tree heat bonuses, etc. Who knows, they may even actually do something with MGs.

Why would you think that? It looks like what theyre doing is making weapons ********... if anything theyd make MGs do 8 heat per shot or something else as stupid

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

Alistair Winter, on 13 September 2016 - 05:07 PM, said:

I don't understand this new approach. Why is this happening now, and why didn't it happen before?

PGI feels no obligation to cater to TT faction now that harebrained schemes is acting as a lightning rod for canon squad, now the road to game balance is clearer as a result?

(When in doubt, blame the tabletop players! I'm kidding btw.)

[BLOOD WOLF]

I Zeratul I, on 15 September 2016 - 03:16 PM, said:

PGI feels no obligation to cater to TT faction now that harebrained schemes is acting as a lightning rod for canon squad, now the road to game balance is clearer as a result?

(When in doubt, blame the tabletop players! I'm kidding btw.)

at least the TT purist have a home. However the new HBS game is not gonna be exactly like the TT, as least for practical purposes.

[Karl Streiger]

BLOOD WOLF, on 15 September 2016 - 04:35 PM, said:

at least the TT purist have a home. However the new HBS game is not gonna be exactly like tm he TT, as least for practical purposes.

Oh I really hope that, when they roll virtual 2d6 dice I will be embarrassed.
You can have smooth to hit values at least you have 100 options don't have to be 8+ but 42%
Or because the enemy travelled 80m rather than 2 hex it's a 45% where it's a 7+ in TT and 5~2%

[BLOOD WOLF]

Karl Streiger, on 15 September 2016 - 09:18 PM, said:

Oh I really hope that, when they roll virtual 2d6 dice I will be embarrassed.
You can have smooth to hit values at least you have 100 options don't have to be 8+ but 42%
Or because the enemy travelled 80m rather than 2 hex it's a 45% where it's a 7+ in TT and 5~2%

Good point there. I forgot with a TT you couldn't do it by percentages, at least not as easy as a computer can do it.

well you could but that would require endless sheets of paper.

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 15 September 2016 - 11:08 PM.

[Lily from animove]

They call a professional hotline

[Alistair Winter]

My tinfoil hat conspiracy is that since we have no visible indication of the balancing team doing a lot of work on MWO the past few months before the ED PTS, they've either been working almost full time on ED for quite some time now (and weeding out alternatives to Ghost Heat), or... working on a different game.

At some point, PGI is going to start working on another game (if they haven't already), and any kind of lack of progress makes me think about that. It's like when you're chatting to someone and they suddenly go silent for 10 minutes and then they're back and they say they're suddenly tired. You know they've been watching the adult videos.