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Stats Vs Gh Vs Ed Vs Heat Effects Vs Other

Balance

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#1 Reno Blade

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 02:17 AM

Hi all,

just a quick discussion question for everyone...if you have to choose...
What would you prefere personally from these approaches for balancing/"nerfing" alphas:

1. Stats of the weapon only.
This would nerf weapons which are boated (e.g. SPL were nerfed already, so many lights are using HML instead)
-> Downside: it will affect lighter mechs and low-hardpoint variants as well as "boats", so each weapon will feel "weak" if not boated (so this is moving more towards boats)

2. Ghost Heat limits only.
This would target boats only and would reduce relatively easily the volley size.
-> Downside: it will force people to do 1-2 combis instead of alpha, even on lighter mechs
-> Downside: there are loopholes that allow certain groups to work together without triggering GH (e.g. Large and Med lasers together, or ACs + SRMs + laser)

3. Energy Draw instead of GH.
This would tacke all GH limitations and all combinations together to limit overall dps output of the game by extra heat.
-> Downside: everything is generating more heat with penalties, even mixed builds

4. Heat scale effects (alone/on top).
This would reduce movement, aiming and targeting speed depending on your mechs heat levels (e.g. above 50% / 70%).
-> Downside: probably not efficient without existing Ghost heat to move the heat up in the first place to trigger the effects

5. Ghost Charging (name tbd).
This would be a new idea where the Ghost Heat /Energy Draw does not increase heat, but other stats.
e.g. Firing 6 PPCs together will charge up the weapons (maybe ~1sec), or firing multiple lasers will make the beam duration and cooldown 25% longer...
maybe multiple Gauss will charge 50% longer, or missiles/uAC bursts will be longer.
->Downside: New things require a lot more theory crafting and testing on top of the already developed GH and ED mechanics.



personally, I'd probably would rank these choices like this:
3. - Energy Draw, as my top favorite, but it will require some tweaking imho:
earlier penalties, but lower, so you are not getting huge spike after crossing the red line.

4./5. - Heat Scale effects and other effects, as an on-top effect for ED or GH, but not as stand alone.

2. GH, as a short therm solutions before 3 and 4/5 can be used. This should be triggered early with low amound of penalty:
e.g. max of 3 large or 4 med lasers, but low penalty, so you can still use more.
e.g. 2x AC20 with lower penalty multiplier, so you will trigger GH, but not as spiky as now.
e.g. 3x SRM6 instead of 4x SRM6 without GH, but lower penalty again.

1. Stat changes, only for making weapons overall more difficult.
e.g. all ACs to be burst and all lasers (besides pulse) to be longer burns.

Edited by Reno Blade, 23 May 2018 - 02:19 AM.


#2 Alexander of Macedon

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 03:19 AM

Or, y'know, nerf specific problem chassis instead of ruining the weapon for everything else. This is made even easier with omnimechs. Give the Nova and Stormcrow laser-spam arms negative heat dissipation, increased cooldown, or something.

#3 _Casper_

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 05:03 AM

I do not have a problem with alphas like we have them in the game right now. Systems like ED make everything the same. The current balance course is pretty much the same in different dresses. The balance decisions of the last year or so are aiming for max alphas of 30dmg. If i remember it correctly that is the same threshold like we had on the pts when ED was tested. That makes the gameplay boooooring. All the constant nerfing and equalization is the reason for the 'unfunning' of MWO.
If every meal you can buy in any restaurant in your town tastes exactly the same and only differs in colour and consistency wouldn't it be boring?

Back to the topic. I would like to see more variation of individual mech quirks to balance the game than the super power nerfs of complete weapon systems or the destruction of playstyles (rip jumpsniping).

Edited by _Casper_, 23 May 2018 - 05:03 AM.


#4 Bud Crue

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 05:33 AM

None of the above.

Imho no single weapon in this game is OP. A single machine gun is not a problem nor is a single heavy gauss rifle or heavy large laser. If there are problems in terms of balance between mechs it is at the variant level, and a problem that is largely driven by disparity between variants’ abilities to boat weapons that creates the perception of imbalance. Thus, I think it is absurd to address the “problem” of this perceived imbalance with mechanisms that go after weapons and their functionality across all mechs.

If the Piranha 1 is a problem because it can boat 12 MG, while a similar mech with only 8 or 6 or 4 MG is not a problem then why on earth would you nerf MGs? If a build with 2HLL and 6ERML is a problem then why would you nerf all mechs abilities to carry even 2HLL OR more than 5ERML via GH?

In the game as we know it there are outlier variants that can boat weapons better than most or all other mechs. These mechs -or more specifically their very specific builds that only they can mount- are the cause of imbalance. These outliers should be dealt with using mechanisms that address them with precision and specificity. Such a mechanism was once quirks. PGI has absurdly decided that quirks, rather than specific variants and their ability to perform in a manner superior to all other mechs, is the source of power creep in this game (I’m not making this up). And so rather than balance by quirks to address that single variant and its once OP build, we get broad brush GH or weapon nerfs or energy draw, or whatever; when all we need is a negative -20% ROF nerf on a single chassis, or a slight cooldown nerf on another, etc. Instead we have a proposal for adding GH to any build firing more than 5ERML and similar madness.

We don’t need mechanisms like more GH or ED or broad application weapon nerfs, which potentially affect everything, when the problem is caused by one or two specific builds on specific variants.

#5 Reno Blade

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 11:32 AM

View PostBud Crue, on 23 May 2018 - 05:33 AM, said:

None of the above.

Imho no single weapon in this game is OP. A single machine gun is not a problem nor is a single heavy gauss rifle or heavy large laser. If there are problems in terms of balance between mechs it is at the variant level, and a problem that is largely driven by disparity between variants’ abilities to boat weapons that creates the perception of imbalance. Thus, I think it is absurd to address the “problem” of this perceived imbalance with mechanisms that go after weapons and their functionality across all mechs.

Do you mean that the balance would be "achived" if every variant could boat?
This is part of the overall balance problem.
You are "forced" to boat, as you are gimping yourself if you dont.
even on smaller mechs,
e.g. you will try to put 3x LL in a PHawk instead of using 1x LL and 2x ML + MGs.

Quote


If the Piranha 1 is a problem because it can boat 12 MG, while a similar mech with only 8 or 6 or 4 MG is not a problem then why on earth would you nerf MGs? If a build with 2HLL and 6ERML is a problem then why would you nerf all mechs abilities to carry even 2HLL OR more than 5ERML via GH?

That's the point of ED, where GH is very limited by weapon type, ED can deal with alpha damage overall.

Why nerf (weapon XYZ) if you can buff them and then make them have some diminishing returns with GH/ED, so it will only affect "boats"!

Quote

In the game as we know it there are outlier variants that can boat weapons better than most or all other mechs. These mechs -or more specifically their very specific builds that only they can mount- are the cause of imbalance. These outliers should be dealt with using mechanisms that address them with precision and specificity. Such a mechanism was once quirks. PGI has absurdly decided that quirks, rather than specific variants and their ability to perform in a manner superior to all other mechs, is the source of power creep in this game (I’m not making this up). And so rather than balance by quirks to address that single variant and its once OP build, we get broad brush GH or weapon nerfs or energy draw, or whatever; when all we need is a negative -20% ROF nerf on a single chassis, or a slight cooldown nerf on another, etc. Instead we have a proposal for adding GH to any build firing more than 5ERML and similar madness.

We don’t need mechanisms like more GH or ED or broad application weapon nerfs, which potentially affect everything, when the problem is caused by one or two specific builds on specific variants.


I think we get much more benefit from GH/ED than without.
Why?
Because we can BUFF weapons itself to make some strong shots, but we have to reduce the boating, or there will never be a reason to use less than X of each weapon.
Everyone is always crying about nerfs and demands buffs, but we can not buff weapons without making boating the weapon more powerfull at the same time.

I personally would prefere a game where a single Gauss/AC20, PPC or HLL can actually be useful without the need to always use (at least) 2 or more of them.

#6 MechaBattler

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 12:07 PM

Come on guys! Energy draw! It'll be fun! :3

It's seriously funny to see people actually reconsider Energy Draw. As much as I thought it was a good idea. It wasn't a fix em all idea. You'd still need to buff and nerf and otherwise tweak the overall balance.

#7 process

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 12:09 PM

2 HLL + 6 ERML does 78 points of damage for 69.8 heat, without heat gen skills. If the heat cap were closer to 30 heat, it would be impossible to dispense an alpha like that, and there would be no need for bandaid mechancs like ghost heat or energy draw.

You would still have certain outlier builds that could delivery unacceptably high alphas, but a lower heat cap would definitively handle energy weapons and bring them in line with other weapon categories.

#8 Luminis

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 12:26 PM

View Postprocess, on 23 May 2018 - 12:09 PM, said:

If the heat cap were closer to 30 heat, it would be impossible to dispense an alpha like that

In fact, firing five CERML would shut you down at a heat cap of 30.

Dunno if that's "in line" to some players.

Edited by Luminis, 23 May 2018 - 12:27 PM.


#9 Bud Crue

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 12:30 PM

View PostReno Blade, on 23 May 2018 - 11:32 AM, said:

Do you mean that the balance would be "achived" if every variant could boat?
This is part of the overall balance problem.
You are "forced" to boat, as you are gimping yourself if you dont.
even on smaller mechs,
e.g. you will try to put 3x LL in a PHawk instead of using 1x LL and 2x ML + MGs.


That's the point of ED, where GH is very limited by weapon type, ED can deal with alpha damage overall.

Why nerf (weapon XYZ) if you can buff them and then make them have some diminishing returns with GH/ED, so it will only affect "boats"!



I think we get much more benefit from GH/ED than without.
Why?
Because we can BUFF weapons itself to make some strong shots, but we have to reduce the boating, or there will never be a reason to use less than X of each weapon.
Everyone is always crying about nerfs and demands buffs, but we can not buff weapons without making boating the weapon more powerfull at the same time.

I personally would prefere a game where a single Gauss/AC20, PPC or HLL can actually be useful without the need to always use (at least) 2 or more of them.


No. My position is clear. I am not advocating that all mechs should boat to ahieve balance, and nothing I wrote even implies such a position. My only view regarding balance is that broad brush gimmicks such a GH or ED or across the board weapon changes suck, when almost every example of perceived imbalance that people typically point to are specific to individual variants or builds.
Such "fixes" may address the outliers that are problematic, but they also gimp if not outright eliminate that which is already mediocre. Adding more GH to HLLs in an effort to gimp clan laser vomit builds just makes a mediocre 2HLL Adder or Shadow Cat even more irrelevant as an example. You want to buff with a broad brush, then fine. But if you are going to gimp things or limit viability, do it with precision.


#10 process

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 12:38 PM

View PostLuminis, on 23 May 2018 - 12:26 PM, said:

In fact, firing five CERML would shut you down at a heat cap of 30.

Dunno if that's "in line" to some players.


It's a place to start. 35 damage for the cost of 5 tons is still a pretty good deal, and the reduced alpha could potentially be exchanged for Clan improvements and less dependence on IS quirks.

A high heat cap is directly responsible for energy weapon dominance and the implementation of ghost heat, since it negates their primary drawback: heat.

Edited by process, 23 May 2018 - 12:40 PM.


#11 Angel of Annihilation

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 01:31 PM

I vote we just stop F'ing around with thing and deal with the fact that the game is never going to be perfectly balanced no matter what method we use and let PGI get on to adding new maps and game mode or whatever.

Seriously, not one of the so call "problems" in the game are really problems. Sure occasionally I get smacked upside the head with a full burn 78 alpha vomit strike just like the rest of you but really is no worse than gets double slapped by Dual Heavy Gauss or dumped on by an LRM 80 or getting thumped by an ATM 48 at under 300m. In fact the only thing that just feels outright broken to me is mass MGs but even that I can live with. The point is that the game is still fun even with this "problems" and if we keep chasing this "perfect balance" chances are the game is only going to get less fun because lets face it, which each "Fix" PGI has put into place, generally speaking the game has gotten less fun.

Leave it alone and let it lie already.

Edited by Viktor Drake, 23 May 2018 - 01:32 PM.


#12 Scyther

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 01:57 PM

It's generally considered unwise to decide how to fix something before you've defined what the problem is.

Give me a firm idea of what is 'broken' and I can probably come up with a way to fix it or at least reduce the problem to something manageable.

Start with a notion like "some mechs and weapon combos are bad and overpowered and we need to stop the madness!" and any solution you come up with will be a mess.

#13 process

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 02:07 PM

PGI has defined the problem as high alpha damage, particularly for pinpoint and/or instantaneous damage, and low TTK. Ghost heat is their solution to the problem.

#14 MechaBattler

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 02:16 PM

Well they specified in their post that they were going to change GH limits so that Clan Laser vomit were equal to Inner Sphere laser vomit.

#15 Angel of Annihilation

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 03:57 PM

View PostMechaBattler, on 23 May 2018 - 02:16 PM, said:

Well they specified in their post that they were going to change GH limits so that Clan Laser vomit were equal to Inner Sphere laser vomit.


But this just creates other issues. That is the problem with PGI's "Fixes". While the Clan's might have a high alpha damage potential with lasers they don't have good sustain. There weapons are hotter than hell and have extremely lengthy cooldown and burn duration attached to them. Overall over the course of lets say 10 minutes of battle, the actual damage output of Clan lasers vs IS lasers is honestly about the same. If you just tack on more ghost heat to the Clans, it becomes just a straight up nerf to their ability to compete because changing the amount of lasers you can fire without ghost heat doesn't change all the disadvantages that also come along with Clan lasers.

Point is here, even if we say that high alpha damage is a problem, just making it so the Clan's can't fall back on high alpha to compensate for lack of sustain just creates another problem. Honestly, there is no way, outside of a complete overhaul at least to the way Clan weapons work, to address this issue. However if you overhaul Clan weapons to work differently, then you are probably going to throw general Clan vs IS balance out of wack again and it becomes a never ending nerf session.

The only sane solution that has ever been suggested was Power Draw and the community in their infinite wisdom booed that out of existence very quickly that it will never come back, so we are stuck. Also lets make something very clear, doing this whole Ghost Heat frack-over on the Clan's isn't going to solve anything aside from pissing off tons of players and that is the last thing we want when it has such a relatively low playerbase as is.

#16 MechaBattler

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 04:16 PM

View PostViktor Drake, on 23 May 2018 - 03:57 PM, said:


But this just creates other issues. That is the problem with PGI's "Fixes". While the Clan's might have a high alpha damage potential with lasers they don't have good sustain. There weapons are hotter than hell and have extremely lengthy cooldown and burn duration attached to them. Overall over the course of lets say 10 minutes of battle, the actual damage output of Clan lasers vs IS lasers is honestly about the same. If you just tack on more ghost heat to the Clans, it becomes just a straight up nerf to their ability to compete because changing the amount of lasers you can fire without ghost heat doesn't change all the disadvantages that also come along with Clan lasers.

Point is here, even if we say that high alpha damage is a problem, just making it so the Clan's can't fall back on high alpha to compensate for lack of sustain just creates another problem. Honestly, there is no way, outside of a complete overhaul at least to the way Clan weapons work, to address this issue. However if you overhaul Clan weapons to work differently, then you are probably going to throw general Clan vs IS balance out of wack again and it becomes a never ending nerf session.

The only sane solution that has ever been suggested was Power Draw and the community in their infinite wisdom booed that out of existence very quickly that it will never come back, so we are stuck. Also lets make something very clear, doing this whole Ghost Heat frack-over on the Clan's isn't going to solve anything aside from pissing off tons of players and that is the last thing we want when it has such a relatively low playerbase as is.


I'm just pointing out the supposed problem that PGI highlighted for the change. It's possible it's just an excuse to continue lower damage to raise TTK.

#17 BTGbullseye

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 04:30 PM

View PostMechaBattler, on 23 May 2018 - 04:16 PM, said:

I'm just pointing out the supposed problem that PGI highlighted for the change. It's possible it's just an excuse to continue lower damage to raise TTK.

If they really wanted that, they should do all weapons at once, not the one remaining system that allows Clans to compete.

#18 LordNothing

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 10:21 PM

one thing ive been pushing for some time, since the ed pts was that each weapon class should have its own independant anti-boating mechanism. something that seems natural. ed/gh is perfectly natural to go with lasers, ppcs, gauss rifles, but it seems like it doesnt fit with ballistics or missiles at all. its really counter intuitive.

lasers would get some sort of ed/gh hybrid. kind of aiming for a damage ceiling like ed tried to do without being completely arbitrary like gh is. the penalty for exceeding the threshold could be heat, but you could do other things like extend durations or cooldowns as well.

the obvious choice for ballistics is recoil. i really like the hgauss recoil effects and think they wouldnt be completely out of place on other ballistic weapons if an alpha exceeds a certain damage ceiling. dps weapons would completely circumvent that so for those you would build up spread as you fire over a period of time. this would affect things like machine guns, ac2 boats and racs (these would be zero spread initially but perhaps build up at a faster rate).

missiles would probibly depend on computing resources on the mech's targeting systems. limiting you to tracking a certain number of objects (again a certain damage ceiling), exceeding that ceiling will reduce missile maneuverability, spread, and velocity.

you might see a mixed build meta as a result. that would be something to see and what this game has been missing all these years. if things get too meta then you can tie the interactions together in certain ways, for example having recoil effect lasers if you fire the ballistics and lasers together, or maybe gauss would have its charge rate reduced when lasers are red lining. or maybe the targeting system might get overheated and not be able to track as many objects.

#19 LordNothing

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 10:51 PM

View PostBud Crue, on 23 May 2018 - 05:33 AM, said:

None of the above.

Imho no single weapon in this game is OP. A single machine gun is not a problem nor is a single heavy gauss rifle or heavy large laser. If there are problems in terms of balance between mechs it is at the variant level, and a problem that is largely driven by disparity between variants’ abilities to boat weapons that creates the perception of imbalance. Thus, I think it is absurd to address the “problem” of this perceived imbalance with mechanisms that go after weapons and their functionality across all mechs.

If the Piranha 1 is a problem because it can boat 12 MG, while a similar mech with only 8 or 6 or 4 MG is not a problem then why on earth would you nerf MGs? If a build with 2HLL and 6ERML is a problem then why would you nerf all mechs abilities to carry even 2HLL OR more than 5ERML via GH?

In the game as we know it there are outlier variants that can boat weapons better than most or all other mechs. These mechs -or more specifically their very specific builds that only they can mount- are the cause of imbalance. These outliers should be dealt with using mechanisms that address them with precision and specificity. Such a mechanism was once quirks. PGI has absurdly decided that quirks, rather than specific variants and their ability to perform in a manner superior to all other mechs, is the source of power creep in this game (I’m not making this up). And so rather than balance by quirks to address that single variant and its once OP build, we get broad brush GH or weapon nerfs or energy draw, or whatever; when all we need is a negative -20% ROF nerf on a single chassis, or a slight cooldown nerf on another, etc. Instead we have a proposal for adding GH to any build firing more than 5ERML and similar madness.

We don’t need mechanisms like more GH or ED or broad application weapon nerfs, which potentially affect everything, when the problem is caused by one or two specific builds on specific variants.


so much this. the problem isnt the weapons its the mechs. sure there are things i dont like about weapons, but its not really balance related. sure id like to see some refinement on weapon mechanics too, but that also has very little to do with balance (though the things i want would promote mixed builds as viable options). precise targeting of negaquirks is the low hanging fruit option, but pgi can do better than that (or can they?).

i wrote a post about balancing omnimechs earlier. the problem with set of 8 is while it does provide incentive not to stack hardpoints for boating the quirks you get for this are not as good as boating is. it also doesn't do anything for non-meta omnipod configurations that go off stock. maybe you want to go asymmetrical or move your ammo weapons to one side for better ammo management. omnipods are essentially rated based on the number and height of hardpoints. high rated pods come with negative quirks, low rated pods come with positive ones. so you can gain quirkage going for lesser pods or gain boatiness at the expense of negative quirks. a self balancing system.

of course many of the problem clan mechs are battlemechs, so thats not really a catch all solution. it would only kill a few of the meta laser vomit boats in the wild while completely ignoring others. but then again you can use the same rating system to give a battlemech a hardpoint rating and the rating dictates the quirkage. it would bring a lot of older mechs out of mothballs (a certain spider would get godquirks).

#20 Angel of Annihilation

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Posted 24 May 2018 - 06:03 AM

View PostBTGbullseye, on 23 May 2018 - 04:30 PM, said:

If they really wanted that, they should do all weapons at once, not the one remaining system that allows Clans to compete.


Or just increase armor. I mean if they added 50% armor to all mechs, TTK would go way up and it wouldn't involve changing one thing about weapons and how they were.





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