112 replies to this topic

[cougurt]

MechMaster059, on 22 January 2024 - 04:53 PM, said:

So where does Quicksilver draw the line on what has an impact? So we just ignore dead skill nodes, year after year? No biggie?

Everything adds up. Odd that you just accept the Vindicator should suck.

(I have more funny faces than you! HA)

the point that people have been trying to get across to you is that the issues you're pointing out are largely insignificant to the overall state of balance and the average player's enjoyment of the game. these also are not objective problems with the game, they're minor quirks that you personally have a bug up your *** about. you aren't privy to some special information beyond the cauldron's comprehension, they simply haven't addressed these things because they're of little importance to anyone but you.

[Luminios]

I mean ... a lot of the JJ stuff I learned from things that Navid wrote back in April when the Class I JJs got buffed. I think a lot of the information is not readily available in game, but the MechDB wiki has a table with the JJ stats.

To just quickly elaborate on why I think the second stat you were going for would be useless - JJs are a means of getting around the map and moving your mech - something that you rarely have to plan precisely alongside other sources of heat. A total amount of heat from jumping the full burn duration is usually less useful than just knowing how much heat a certain amount of JJs is going to generate in a second. It is a bit like how you don't really care how much heat you generate while you empty one ton of ballistic ammo, but you'd rather want to know how much heat your AC2s are putting out every second.

Anyway, back in April I also started writing a calculator for jump height after spending an hour or two testing a particular jump I had to do with a Marauder II with only one JJ. I don't exactly remember where I found the JJ formula or whether it was told to me on a Discord (maybe by Navid?), so I had to reverse-engineer it from my sheet, but I think it is this:


_________________________________________

I did some quick tests with the Charger back when I wrote my first response. Skilling Hard Brake reduced the distance traveled after letting go of W at full speed from 37m to 27m for me. It seems close enough to be the result of 35% more breaking power though.

That being said, it does take a bit longer for the Charger to stop than it should, as 83.3 kph, which is how fast my Charger goes, is 23.14 m/s. Since the Charger has an unskilled deceleration of 24.06 m/s² it should stop moving in less than a second, especially as the deceleration should go up to 5.28 times that value as we come closer to being stationary. This does not seem to be the case, as even with a macro to hold W and start a BLC burn exactly when you let go of the key, the burn (1.25 x 0.85) finishes before the mech stops.

I'd assume the nodes to function as intended, but the values not being accurate. The description on the wiki seems to match the overall behaviour though.

Edited by Luminios, 22 January 2024 - 05:44 PM.

[dario03]

MechMaster059, on 22 January 2024 - 05:17 PM, said:

Nope. Doesn't matter the game mode, the class of mech, or playstyle. Against even Tier 4 players a UAV is HIGHLY LIKELY to be shot down before reaching 60 seconds aloft. In Tier 3 it's a freak occurrence to see them fall down from running out of time. FREAK OCCURRENCE. EXTREMELY RARE.


If you have capture assist and you're standing in the assault mode base or conquest mode bases it works however limited and situational that may be.

+10 UAV duration ALMOST NEVER works, and for those FREAK OCCURRENCES where it does work, it gives little benefit.

Apples and Oranges comparison.

The exact frequency of occurrence doesn't matter in this comparison. It is entirely possible for a uav to stay up for full time, it is not possible to benefit from 4 nodes of capture assist in modes like skirmish.

[feeWAIVER]

MechMaster059, on 22 January 2024 - 04:59 PM, said:

Huh? What? I'm in Tier 3 and I struggle to shoot them down before my teammates do. They rarely last beyond 30 seconds. Even if they do make it past 60 seconds how much benefit is a measly +10 seconds more? That's only a 16.6% improvement whereas the Salvo node gives -20% AoE compression and the Coolshot node gives -25% cooldown. What are the odds the UAV last through the entire bonus 10 seconds?

That UAV node is WORTHLESS. Swap the 2nd +20% UAV vision radius boost with it so people can safely ignore it without screwing up the UAV skill tree.

The ones that last the full duration are the ones that you don't see.
UAV duration is what can help me win a 1v3 to clench a game.

[MechMaster059]

cougurt, on 22 January 2024 - 05:19 PM, said:

the point that people have been trying to get across to you is...

Blah blah blah, you don't care about fixing game issues. OK Silver Champ.

Luminios, on 22 January 2024 - 05:19 PM, said:

...something that you rarely have to plan precisely alongside other sources of heat. A total amount of heat from jumping the full burn duration is usually less useful than just knowing how much heat a certain amount of JJs is going to generate in a second...

I understand that in an actual game, knowing heat / sec is much more valuable. You don't need to do the computations to figure that out though for a normalization value. JJ heat is admittedly the least valuable variable in the normalization equation since it's so easy to mitigate with heat sinks and the JJ heat reduction nodes but it's significant enough to include in a normalization equation. Keep in mind, the point of the normalization equation isn't to get the numbers "just right". It's merely to identify potential outliers and problems. For that, the Class I JJ sticks out like a sore thumb.

Luminios, on 22 January 2024 - 05:19 PM, said:

...I think it is this:

Awesome! Thanks for this. That's a pretty busy looking equation... LOL.

Luminios, on 22 January 2024 - 05:19 PM, said:

Skilling Hard Break reduced the distance traveled after letting go of W at full speed from 37m to 27m for me. Now both of these paths are considerably longer than they should be in a vacuum...

No doubt Hard Break lowers the total distance. The problem is that it's useless for 1/3 of the throttle band. THIS IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS if you're caught by surprise. It's like a free 2 seconds for the enemy players to unload on you. The only way to reliably mitigate for it is to throttle down your Charger as you move around to stay out of that upper band, a less than ideal solution for a "fast" assault mech.

Edited by MechMaster059, 22 January 2024 - 05:47 PM.

[MechMaster059]

dario03, on 22 January 2024 - 05:35 PM, said:

The exact frequency of occurrence doesn't matter in this comparison. It is entirely possible for a uav to stay up for full time, it is not possible to benefit from 4 nodes of capture assist in modes like skirmish.

And you're a member of the Cauldron...

Bro... hey bro... if the probability of a UAV staying aloft for 60 seconds is 5%, it's not worth getting +10 more seconds... ya get it?

I know the capture assist nodes aren't so good, but you can make them work a higher percentage of the time than the UAV duration node.

feeWAIVER, on 22 January 2024 - 05:35 PM, said:

The ones that last the full duration are the ones that you don't see.
UAV duration is what can help me win a 1v3 to clench a game.

Awesome man! We got the theorycrafters out in full force here. I like you feeWAIVER so I'll just leave it at that.

Edited by MechMaster059, 22 January 2024 - 05:46 PM.

[Luminios]

Since there have been multiple posts, I'll repost my edit:


That being said, it does take a bit longer for the Charger to stop than it should, as 83.3 kph, which is how fast my Charger goes, is 23.14 m/s. Since the Charger has an unskilled deceleration of 24.06 m/s² it should stop moving in less than a second, especially as the deceleration should go up to 5.28 times that value as we come closer to being stationary. This does not seem to be the case, as even with a macro to hold W and start a BLC burn exactly when you let go of the key, the burn (1.25 x 0.85) finishes before the mech stops.

I'd assume the nodes to function as intended, but the values not being accurate. The description on the wiki seems to match the overall behaviour though. Maybe my test is stupid, I am open for suggestions.

Another point I want to make is that yes, the Charger feels sluggish, because other mechs going at that speed don't have to deal with assault agility. A timby just has noticably more deceleration - it takes longer than the stats suggest to stop as well though.

[dario03]

MechMaster059, on 22 January 2024 - 05:46 PM, said:

And you're a member of the Cauldron...

Bro... hey bro... if the probability of a UAV staying aloft for 60 seconds is 5%, it's not worth getting +10 more seconds... ya get it?

I know the capture assist nodes aren't so good, but you can make them work a higher percentage of the time than the UAV duration node.


Awesome man! We got the theorycrafters out in full force here. I like you feeWAIVER so I'll just leave it at that.

Again, opinion. Like I said if you want to say the node isn't good and should be swapped that is fine. But it is not a clear cut answer to what is a dead node. Which is what you would need for your quiz.

[Fookerton]

This post is incredible, just.... chef's kiss. Just beautifully bizarre, the type of thing that could only be borne here, on this great information super highway. So thank you for that.

Just a quick re: regarding UAV duration and it being "worthless". There are instances where I pop a UAV in a tactical way that you have not seemed to consider. I'll provide an example below.



When spawning on this side of Frozen City classic, I'll usually pop a UAV at the marked spot in the image at the beginning of the match. What this does is blip an enemy if they exit the tunnel or if it is indeed shot down, then the shot has come from inside the tunnel and thus has exposed their position. This can help indicate if an enemy(ies) are attempting to push thru without actually keeping eyes on, and also blipping for my teammates.

I'll use this technique on a few other maps that tend to have fast enemy rotations around or if I'm leaving an area that I think is vulnerable to enemy movement. So when UAVs are used in this manner, duration absolutely increases their effectiveness. And while yes, it is sometimes a waste and isn't 100% effective, more often than not when it triggers it's granting valuable intel to me and the rest of the team.

ALso want to note that even in their intended use, there are such things as "good" and "bad" UAV placement. And a well-placed UAV certainly benefits from the duration increase.

[Floof Yeen]

MechMaster059, on 22 January 2024 - 05:46 PM, said:

Bro... hey bro... if the probability of a UAV staying aloft for 60 seconds is 5%, it's not worth getting +10 more seconds... ya get it?

5% is not dead. 5% is roughly 1 in 20 games. and there are times when a UAV is a.) extremely useful and b.) not likely to get shot down. for example:

you are on solaris city on the outside of one of the four tall buildings that block out the central courtyard. it is down to you, and one or two enemy mechs who you are pretty sure are inside of the courtyard. you do not know exactly where they are or in the courtyard or what direction they are facing, so you pop a UAV against the wall of the building so you can see if they're waiting behind the corner, or repositioning, etc. you now have much more info about how to engage, potentially being able to sneak behind them and secure an easy kill, or possibly close the game out entirely. or, possibly, wait for them to peak out so you can easily grab a torso. this could very well end up taking the entire 70 second duration, as often in these scenarios patience is key.

many such cases.

it may not be a common occurrence, but it happens. 5% is not dead. 5% can win close games very easily; maybe you just haven't seen such potential to be used, which is why dario--one of the best players in the game--sees such occurrences and you don't.

[cougurt]

MechMaster059, on 22 January 2024 - 05:40 PM, said:

Blah blah blah, you don't care about fixing game issues. OK Silver Champ.

what's to fix? none of these things are inherently problematic to the actual game experience. regardless, you could have just posted your observations without the condescending attitude and people probably would have been a lot more receptive.

MechMaster059, on 22 January 2024 - 05:46 PM, said:

And you're a member of the Cauldron...

Bro... hey bro... if the probability of a UAV staying aloft for 60 seconds is 5%, it's not worth getting +10 more seconds... ya get it?

I know the capture assist nodes aren't so good, but you can make them work a higher percentage of the time than the UAV duration node.

this is a matter of opinion. even if the extra duration isn't particularly valuable in many cases, one could argue that having 2 UAVs with increased range is strong enough to justify having to take a useless node.

[MechMaster059]

Luminios, on 22 January 2024 - 05:51 PM, said:

That being said, it does take a bit longer for the Charger to stop than it should,...

I'd assume the nodes to function as intended, but the values not being accurate....

Maybe the accel/decel of the Charger is as crap as the little graph suggests it is...

I forgot to ask you, in that JJ height equation you provided, where do you get the value for "UpThrust"?

Fookerton, on 22 January 2024 - 06:03 PM, said:

Just a quick re: regarding UAV duration and it being "worthless". There are instances where I pop a UAV in a tactical way that you have not seemed to consider. I'll provide an example below.
...

You pose interesting circumstances where additional duration might be helpful. That doesn't answer why it has to be placed at the front of the UAV nodes in the skill tree.

If it's so good, why not boost it up to +15 seconds and swap it in place of the current location of the 2nd +20% vision radius node so the UAV skill tree layout can match the Coolshot and Salvos layout and players are FORCED to skill it if they don't want to in order to get to the other UAV nodes?

cougurt, on 22 January 2024 - 06:16 PM, said:

... one could argue that having 2 UAVs with increased range is strong enough to justify having to take a useless node.

LOL this Silver Champ is too funny.

[Heavy Money]

Some skill nodes suck and should be improved? Wow, you are literally telling me for the first time.
Let's all jump over to the skill tree discussion channel on the Cauldron's discord and tell them this breaking news.

[Floof Yeen]

MechMaster059, on 22 January 2024 - 06:20 PM, said:

You pose interesting circumstances where additional duration might be helpful. That doesn't answer why it has to be placed at the front of the UAV nodes in the skill tree.
If it's so good, why not boost it up to +15 seconds and swap it in place of the current location of the 2nd +20% vision radius node so the UAV skill tree layout can match the Coolshot and Salvos layout and players are FORCED to skill it if they don't want to in order to get to the other UAV nodes?

so, then... the issue is that the node is not "dead" as you SO confidently stated in your opening post, but rather that it's simply a.) underpowered and/or b.) mispositioned in the skill tree? are you willing to acknowledge this, at least?

[Fookerton]

MechMaster059, on 22 January 2024 - 06:20 PM, said:

That doesn't answer why it has to be placed at the front of the UAV nodes in the skill tree.

Yikes. It doesn't answer because that wasn't the question. Here, I'll repost the question:

Quote

1. There is a dead node in the skill tree, a node that is nearly useless no matter what mech or build. Can you guess which node?

I guess you wrote "nearly useless", which is a horrible qualifier if this were serious tbh, but I gathered "WORTHLESS" from your own following messages.

[MechMaster059]

Heavy Money, on 22 January 2024 - 06:32 PM, said:

Some skill nodes suck and should be improved? Wow, you are literally telling me for the first time.
Let's all jump over to the skill tree discussion channel on the Cauldron's discord and tell them this breaking news.

Awesome man. You let me know when the Cauldron will get around to fixing these nodes. 2 years? 3 years? You keep me in the loop buddy.

Floof Yeen, on 22 January 2024 - 06:34 PM, said:

so, then... the issue is that the node is not "dead" as you SO confidently stated in your opening post, but rather that it's simply a.) underpowered and/or b.) mispositioned in the skill tree? are you willing to acknowledge this, at least?

No, the +10 second UAV node is quite dead as I stated. I was merely being courteous to Fookerton's theory crafting. He posted edge case scenarios where there is a high risk he simply wastes a UAV looking for something that never even shows up. This is not how UAVs are primarily used. They're typically used in situations where you have an inkling that an enemy is close by but you don't know their exact position and number so you pop a UAV close to their position to get that information. Often you don't even care that much if the UAV gets shot down quickly because precisely locating the position and number of the enemy for a brief moment was all you needed.

Another situation is if your in an assault mech firing down-range upon targets and you're afraid of being backstabbed by a light mech so you pop a UAV to cover your six. It is highly unlikely you stay in the same location for 60 seconds before having to reposition. Adding +10 seconds to this is such a marginal benefit that it's not worth wasting a skill point on it. Oh by the way, I almost always get full Seismic on all my mechs so the vision provided by a UAV is even less useful to me.

Edited by MechMaster059, 22 January 2024 - 07:01 PM.

[cougurt]

MechMaster059, on 22 January 2024 - 06:20 PM, said:

LOL this Silver Champ is too funny.

i'm not sure what's so funny. i take double UAVs on a number of my mechs, and i would still do so even if that node did absolutely nothing.

[dario03]

MechMaster059, on 22 January 2024 - 06:57 PM, said:

Another situation is if your in an assault mech firing down-range upon targets and you're afraid of being backstabbed by a light mech so you pop a UAV to cover your six. It is highly unlikely you stay in the same location for 60 seconds before having to reposition. Adding +10 seconds to this is such a marginal benefit that it's not worth wasting a skill point on it. Oh by the way, I almost always get full Seismic on all my mechs so the vision provided by a UAV is even less useful to me.

Maybe it is highly unlikely you would stay in the same location for 60 seconds, but there are plenty of players that in a long range mech of any weight would stay close to that uav for more than that. Also full seismic takes 7 nodes, 5 of which are not seismic, and it only works when you keep your feet planted.

So these are options decided by preference.

Edited by dario03, 22 January 2024 - 07:10 PM.

[Fookerton]

MechMaster059, on 22 January 2024 - 06:57 PM, said:

No, the +10 second UAV node is quite dead as I stated. I was merely being courteous to Fookerton's theory crafting. He posted edge case scenarios where there is a high risk he simply wastes a UAV looking for something that never even shows up. This is not how UAVs are primarily used. They're typically used in situations where you have an inkling that an enemy is close by but you don't know their exact position and number so you pop a UAV close to their position to get that information. Often you don't even care that much if the UAV gets shot down quickly because precisely locating the position and number of the enemy for a brief moment was all you needed.

Another situation is if your in an assault mech firing down-range upon targets and you're afraid of being backstabbed by a light mech so you pop a UAV to cover your six. It is highly unlikely you stay in the same location for 60 seconds before having to reposition. Adding +10 seconds to this is such a marginal benefit that it's not worth wasting a skill point on it. Oh by the way, I almost always get full Seismic on all my mechs so the vision provided by a UAV is even less useful to me.

Oh wow, your OP framed your assertions as empirical fact and I was truly anticipating some sort of in-depth (and zany) reasoning. Numbers! Formulae! Other stuff! The up and downs, drama of debate!

But you are literally just talking about your build/SP allocation/playstyle preferences. I am considerably less impressed . Please don't take offense to this, but judging by some of your opinions presented throughout this thread, I wouldn't take your advice on skill point allocation as it wouldn't fit my personal style of play.

[Dogmeat1]

MechMaster059, on 22 January 2024 - 06:57 PM, said:

No, the +10 second UAV node is quite dead as I stated. I was merely being courteous to your theory crafting. You post edge case scenarios where there is a high risk you simply waste a UAV looking for something that never even shows up. This is not how UAVs are primarily used. They're typically used in situations where you have an inkling that an enemy is close by but you don't know their exact position and number so you pop a UAV close to their position to get that information. Often you don't even care that much if the UAV gets shot down quickly because precisely locating the position and number of the enemy for a brief moment was all you needed.

Another situation is if your in an assault mech firing down-range upon targets and you're afraid of being backstabbed by a light mech so you pop a UAV to cover your six. It is highly unlikely you stay in the same location for 60 seconds before having to reposition. Adding +10 seconds to this is such a marginal benefit that it's not worth wasting a skill point on it. Oh by the way, I almost always get full Seismic on all my mechs so the vision provided by a UAV is even less useful to me.

Your UAVs get shot down quickly because you have a poor understanding of how and when to place them. Getting the full duration out of UAVs is not particularly rare. Good players can achieve that by placing the UAVs in positions where the terrain will make them hard to identify or behind an enemy position where they are less likely to be seen. You can also drop them in the middle of an engagement right above the enemy mechs so it will above their maximum aim height. Even if they identify the UAV they are now forced to choose between ignoring the enemy and backing up to be able to shoot it, or else ignore it and risk being targeted for the entire engagement.

On one hand you have a group of players with an objectively high level of competence saying the node isn’t useless and on other end you have a lone player who has not demonstrated a reasonable level of competence who is saying it is completely useless. Having seen you play several times in this past week I can say confidently that your situational awareness is underwhelming and quite often it seemed you not aware of what was happening around you. I strongly suspect you do not watch or learn from other players, and that you also do not record and review your own games to identify what went wrong. This contributes to your poor understanding of the game and how you compare with other players around you. You act like an authority and think your experiences reflects that of everyone else, but you really need to take a step back and actually spend some time learning.

Edited by Dogmeat1, 22 January 2024 - 07:31 PM.