123 replies to this topic

[William Petersen]

Sprouticus, on 10 April 2012 - 05:01 PM, said:

I do not mean this in a rude fashion, but your ignorance is showing. Even with proper force deployment (my unit had a history going back to MW2, through NBT-HC) you cannot change the fact that in the space of 2 alphas you can voer close to 1500 meters in mediums and fast heavies.

10s recycle will never play well.

But as someone pointed out, you can easily test it in the beta. I am just telling you that taking 12 short range mechs (or maybe 11 + a commander) will end up beating a mixed gorup most of the time in that config (completely open maps aside). And once you get inside the minimum range of those missiles and PPC's, say good night Gracie.

Three groups of mechs, one in the center with mid to short firepower, two on either flank with long fire power. flankers close to one of the flanks, the other flank shoots it. Middle force goes where needed. Strategy is hard.

[Kudzu]

Solis Obscuri, on 10 April 2012 - 04:24 PM, said:

If people could only shoot once every ten seconds, why would you expect them to do anything but pop-up, alpha, then run and hide for 9s?

I'm not for continuous rapid fire, which is equally silly, but allowing weapons at different rates should be fine as long as heat and ammo are enforced properly. Even if I can fire the AC/20 in my HBK-4G Hunchback three times over 20s, the medium lasers four times, and the small laser 8 times, I'm still generating 53 heat in the space of time I can dissipate 26 - can't keep that up forever, even on a fairly well heat-sinked 'mech like the Hunchie!

In the same 20 second time frame you've also put out 124 points of damage, generally to the same area of a mech (since 20 seconds doesn't allow for a lot of movement and there's not as much spread as in the TT), congrats-- you've cored an Atlas in 20 seconds with 46 points of damage to spare.

[Solis Obscuri]

Kudzu, on 10 April 2012 - 05:07 PM, said:

In the same 20 second time frame you've also put out 124 points of damage, generally to the same area of a mech (since 20 seconds doesn't allow for a lot of movement and there's not as much spread as in the TT), congrats-- you've cored an Atlas in 20 seconds with 46 points of damage to spare.

Even an Atlas can cover 300m in 20s, so there's bound to be maneuvering. Especially since the Atlas will core the Hunchie first unless the Hunchie keeps moving. And unless all damage is hitscan/cursor-perfect (which isn't planned for this game), it isn't all falling in the same torso section with every shot.

And by your assumptions, having a 10s cycle time for every weapon would just last 10s longer, and 27 of those seconds would involve the Hunchback hiding behind a building between alpha-strikes, which isn't very interesting. Having some variation between high-damage-per-shot-low-DoT weapons and lower-damage-per-shot-higher-DoT weapons creates a lot more tactical considerations, like "Is it worth staying in the open and fighting with my faster-cycling lasers, or should I just go for cover and wait for my AC/20 to reload?"

[Kudzu]

Solis Obscuri, on 10 April 2012 - 05:24 PM, said:

Even an Atlas can cover 300m in 20s, so there's bound to be maneuvering. Especially since the Atlas will core the Hunchie first unless the Hunchie keeps moving. And unless all damage is hitscan/cursor-perfect (which isn't planned for this game), it isn't all falling in the same torso section with every shot.

And by your assumptions, having a 10s cycle time for every weapon would just last 10s longer, and 27 of those seconds would involve the Hunchback hiding behind a building between alpha-strikes, which isn't very interesting. Having some variation between high-damage-per-shot-low-DoT weapons and lower-damage-per-shot-higher-DoT weapons creates a lot more tactical considerations, like "Is it worth staying in the open and fighting with my faster-cycling lasers, or should I just go for cover and wait for my AC/20 to reload?"

The weapon convergance system isn't exactly going to make that difficult as long as you maintain the same distance from the target. At least popping back and forth will do something to reset it and spread the damage around rather than "stand and fire because the recycle times are a joke". That is, of course, assuming there will be something there to hide behind in the first place.

One of the things I thought WOT did right was have recycle times take awhile-- it made you want to make sure that every shot counted and that taking someone down quickly took teamwork. 10 seconds is nothing compared to the recycle times of some of the arty pieces and by chain firing instead of alpha-striking you'll have something to do while you wait.

[BerryChunks]

I cant vote because there's not the options I would choose. So I'll go ahead and choose votes taht are gettting least hits.

Btw, you know that in mechcommander, a laser is actually 1 ton, but then 3 ton of heat sink is added. Similarly with ballistics and missiles, 1-2 tons of heat sink is added per weapon, depending, while a remaining 1 or 1.5 tons is added in ammo. Thats all the backdoor calculation that
was done to give the tonnage ratings to all the weapons. How much ton of ammo/HS needed for this weapon to have a constant rate of fire in the game based on some previous calculations for heat sinks. None of this math is in the game itself, it was written down and then assumed and fed into the game as final stats on weaponry.

[Solis Obscuri]

Kudzu, on 10 April 2012 - 05:40 PM, said:

The weapon convergance system isn't exactly going to make that difficult as long as you maintain the same distance from the target. At least popping back and forth will do something to reset it and spread the damage around rather than "stand and fire because the recycle times are a joke". That is, of course, assuming there will be something there to hide behind in the first place.

One of the things I thought WOT did right was have recycle times take awhile-- it made you want to make sure that every shot counted and that taking someone down quickly took teamwork. 10 seconds is nothing compared to the recycle times of some of the arty pieces and by chain firing instead of alpha-striking you'll have something to do while you wait.

I'm fine with stuff taking "a while". In my opinion, 5s is a good long while to wait between shots in a running fire-fight. I think the TT Solaris VII 'mech dueling rules broke combat into 2.5s rounds and weapons worked something like:

10s cycle time (four turns)
PPC, LRM

7.5s cycle time (three turns)
Large Laser, AC/20, Gauss Rifle

5s cycle time (2 turns)
Medium Laser, AC/5, AC/10, SRM

2.5s cycle time (every turn)
Small Laser, Flamer, MG, AC/2

Something like that would work pretty well, IMO. Cycle times aren't stupid fast, but there is some variation, and different designs should see better or worse DoT depending on loadout.

[Pvt Dancer]

Solaris rules though also don't translate very well, but that is my opinion. There is a reason why those rules just don't translate well for any other game but the one they were designed for, a dueling game.

Listen.... I would be fine with 5 second recycle time or 10 recycle time... I honestly don't care as long as the damage isn't nerfed as well. As is mentioned, WoTs has a heck of a lot longer recycle times and they have a /single/ weapon and the game works fine.

But if you have 10 weapons, you can have a shot a second and your only limiting factor is Heat... as it /should/ be. If you increase the recycle time, someone with a mech with 10 weapons (I am pretty sure there is a Hunchback with 8 Med Lasers for example) your not even using half of your lasers and still producing a non-stop stream of fire. You start getting into that dangerous area of halving damage and dealing with fractions, and you also start messing with heat. Reduced damage over a 5 second span also means your not hitting the same spot you were hitting 5 seconds ago unless both you and your target are not moving. This means now that yeah... an AC 20 isn't a threat to a mech, and that your honestly better off with a AC 10 or multiple Medium Lasers because it is the same packets of damage hitting. All your doing now is shooting...pellets. The weapon is nerfed.

I think the real people it effects with a 10 second recycle time are the mechs with 1 main weapon, something like a Stinger or Wasp (for example). With the heat sinks they have, there should never be an issue of overheating with a stock mech. With one main gun faster would be better, but if it means the damage is halved... you know what, I would take the 10 second recycle time for the full 5pts of damage.

End of the day, /this is/ what Beta is for, to fine tune this. The Devs are playing it now, but what they are playing may not what we will be playing in beta, just as what we play in beta may not be what is played on release.

[Oswin Aurelius]

Maybe my mind is just too tired from lack of sleep to process this correctly, but how the bloody hell can ANYONE want to have 10 second reload times on all weapons? IN AN ACTION GAME?!

It's a SIMULATOR, for god's sake, not a bloody live-action tabletop game!

Edited by Oswin Aurelius, 10 April 2012 - 10:37 PM.

[William Petersen]

Oswin Aurelius, on 10 April 2012 - 10:36 PM, said:

Maybe my mind is just too tired from lack of sleep to process this correctly, but how the bloody hell can ANYONE want to have 10 second reload times on all weapons? IN AN ACTION GAME?!

It's a SIMULATOR, for god's sake, not a bloody live-action tabletop game!

Because most Mechs mount multiple munitions? If I'm in a JR7-D, I have 4 MLas and an SRM-4. I can fire a weapon every 2 seconds if I just have to be pushing buttons. Sure, a JR7-A would be 'boring' since it has only a single large laser, but if you I don't like it, I don't have to drive it. /shrugs

And your sly attempt to equate action to sim did not go unnoticed. Simulators have action, but they are not "action games". Thay are simulators.

[CCC Dober]

Just wanted to throw in something else to keep in mind ...

Original values: RoF equalized across the board, max weapons damage, min/max armor per section

If you mess with the weapon side of balance, you have to adjust the armor side to compensate. Fights are set to last longer than 20 secs after all. And let's not forget that original armor specs in MWO automatically take a hit because skill > dice. Means you can actively exploit gaps in the armor without penalties (called shots). The original values apply to a different set of rules (turns and dice).

Any way you look at it, the armor has to improve regardless of whether you keep the weapons as is or not. A damage resistance bonus might do the trick ...

Hope you gents don't forget that weapons and armor come as a package as far as balance is concerned. As you were =)

[Pvt Dancer]

Well Dober, armor isn't mentioned because armor is using the Table Top values.

I have a sinking feeling that to artificially extend matches weapons will be nerfed and given 5 second recycle times... this will make AC 20s pretty much worthless in my mind and people will be doing energy weapons over everything else....

[CCC Dober]

That's a real downer. Assuming that they [armor values] are kept as is, then I don't see any other way than additional stats i.e. damage resistance to proof them against the onslaught of a realtime, skill based environment. One could argue that dice multiplied the original armor effectiveness because the hits were more or less randomly distributed. I don't see this happening in MW:O, maybe in MW:T.

[Grus]

Pvt Dancer, on 11 April 2012 - 12:06 AM, said:

this will make AC 20s pretty much worthless in my mind and people will be doing energy weapons over everything else....

i dont know, me personally for my kind of style i need ammo dependent weps on my mech. for the shear fact that they use less if any heat in order to fire. that way i can spam my lasers for a bit, rack up the heat and then fire the *insert ammo wep* till i cool down. works well if you get caught in a fur-ball :/

[Leetskeet]

Keke! People voting for 10 second recycle times!

I smiled

[Slyck]

Pvt Dancer, on 11 April 2012 - 12:06 AM, said:

... this will make AC 20s pretty much worthless in my mind and people will be doing energy weapons over everything else....

Why is it that you are so adamant about the per shot damage of weapons? The whole one-shot-one-hit per turn model was really just a simplification for PnP TT play and exactly the kind of thing we can do away with in a realtime sim.

Less damage per shot will help mitigate the fact that FPS skills generally means a better grouping of hits. And we can do away with one-shot-kills, which is fine in a game where we control multiple mechs but is a huge pain when we're knocked out of a 20 minute match in the first 5 minutes.

[Dragorath]

Well it's not an easy to answer issue.
If you have a high point damage, but short distance. the rate of fire should be intermediate. (example AC20)
if you have a high but spreading damage with short distance, the rate of fireshould be intermediate. (example LB-X 20)
BUT take a Ultra-AC20 comparable high rate of fire. maybe 25% less time to AC20.
if you have high spread and low damage with short distance, high rate of fire (MG), but keep in mind there should also be a cool down.

To keep it short. You have to make a balance between fire power, maximum range, minimum range, heat, spread of damage, and ammo, repectively. It's definetely not an easy task.
But because of ammo dependence of weapons I would prefer these weapons to be a little bit more powerful for their disadavantage to stay with stripped down pants after a comparable short time of battle.

Furthermore, to make all weapons damage/second equal would be bull**it

Edited by Dragorath, 11 April 2012 - 08:14 AM.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

What amazes me is that nearly a third of people want to quadruple the power of the ML, ie keep it's damage and cut recycle times by a quarter. Thats making the weapon way overpowered. I'd like the same thinking applied to the AC20 please. Still 10 second cycle time but 80 damage.
Edit - thinking about it I'd like it applied to all ballistics - imagine the Jagermech with its pair of AC5s & 2s doing 56 damage.

Edited by Nik Van Rhijn, 11 April 2012 - 09:01 AM.

[Felbombling]

Watching the gameplay trailer tells me that the weapon recycle time seems to be about 6-7 seconds for everything. Heat seemed to generate and dissipate quickly, so not sure how that will pan out. With lasers having some wandering characteristics to some extent, I feel AC/20 will be more lethal than a package of lasers. It is still damage over a single location. So, if anything, the heavier weapons like the AC/20, Gauss Rifle, LB 10-X should be more appealing and worth the weight.

[TheRulesLawyer]

In general I think that ACs should have a faster fire rate than energy weapons. Ammo is their primary limiting factor, and they need a little bump, especially given that they are making energy weapons all have unlimited range. Ammo based weapons should increase slightly in load time as they go up in damage.

Energy weapons need to fire faster than every 10s as well. 10s is a long time in a real time environment. Somewhere around 3-7 seconds might be right. The recycle time should go up with damage as well. This needs to be long enough to make ultra long range- no ammo required sniping not a real option.

[BerryChunks]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 11 April 2012 - 08:59 AM, said:

What amazes me is that nearly a third of people want to quadruple the power of the ML, ie keep it's damage and cut recycle times by a quarter. Thats making the weapon way overpowered. I'd like the same thinking applied to the AC20 please. Still 10 second cycle time but 80 damage.
Edit - thinking about it I'd like it applied to all ballistics - imagine the Jagermech with its pair of AC5s & 2s doing 56 damage.

This.

The weapons are pretty balanced for TT, and thats also including the fire rate. You can't reduce some weapons speed while leaving other weapons slow firing like AC, because then lasers really are the end all be all, and swaybacks, swaybacks everywhere.

If all weapons have identical firing rates, that means that we can preserve the existing damage/heat/weight/criticals and the game will be balanced. Once you start messing with speed, it throws all the rest out of whack. a laser firing twice as fast makes that critical, damage, and weight, far more efficiently used over an AC.

The other problem is halving the damage and doubling the speed. if you do that, sure, you're keeping the DPS the same, but overall the effect could actually be marginally worse than having original speed and damage, because at half the damage, you need to hit a specific body part a greater number of timings, andf what with convergance of weapons and all that, it's likely that your shots are going to spread out more, and so not be as effective as a good line up and shot with heavier hitting lasers at original speed.

Take TT, or mechcommander, or MC2, and put mass medium lasers on 1 atlas and 4 AC10-20 on another atlas. The one with full medium lasers should lose all the time unless they get lucky, because all those massed weak weapons diffuse the damage across the other mech, so the other mech is overall damaged but not breached. Meanwhile, it just takes 2-3 volleys with the AC mech to breach a spot.

So you can't try to mess with the speed and lower the damage of a weapon without actually lowering it's true potential. Maybe if lasers feel "a little too strong" lowering speed by double and damage by half would "nerf' lasers to be not "a little too strong", due to the flaw of doing so, but as it stands, all weapons should be the same speed. It just makes it easier to balance the game.