269 replies to this topic

[MCXL]

I'll be doing another post about the illusion of choice later as well.

It's a design trap.

[Azantia]

Good Post. Thanks MCXL

[Kaptain]

Good post MCXL, I appreciate it.

I'm still don't understand what builds people are worried about. I have been building 4 mechs over and over again in anticipation for sinks at 2.0 and don't feel any of those 4 founders builds are OP.

Let me share those plans:
2.0 DHS would allow me to add 2 lrm 10s and 2 tons of ammo on an atlas while loosing 2 points of dissipation.
2.0 DHS would allow me to add the correct number of jump jets to my cat (broken jj exploiter here) and add Artemis + gain 2 points of dissipation. 18 vs 20. Not overpowered.
2.0 DHS would allow me to upgrade my 200 in the hunchy to a 225 and install ams/ams ammo. Not overpowered .
2.0 DHS would allow me to add 2x streak2s+ammo and either ams or ecm. While loosing 2 points of dissipation.

What mechs are we concerned about running heat neutral? If that's not the concern what is? I've yet to hear a good explanation for why the sinks need to be reduced at all. Even packed full of 2.0 DHS awesome and atlas alser/ppc boats will overheat. And XLs provide Hunchbacks and Awesomes with everything they need to boat MLs and MPLs.

Thanks

Edited by Kaptain, 04 November 2012 - 05:52 PM.

[H Seldon]

Lefty Lucy, on 04 November 2012 - 02:51 PM, said:

I feel like if they *drastically* decreased the RoF of Gauss and LRMs then the game would be improved greatly. Gauss should probably fire once every 7-8 seconds.

I agree with that as well. Gauss should also have a min range limit. Would put a little more diversity into the game.

[Lefty Lucy]

H Seldon, on 04 November 2012 - 06:10 PM, said:

I agree with that as well. Gauss should also have a min range limit. Would put a little more diversity into the game.

Spoken with the wisdom of the man who pioneered psychohistory

[Ghosth]

The problem is Gauss Rifle got a rate of fire buff, from 1 round in 10 to 2.5, and it produces so little heat that there is no reason not to fire it.

The PPC got a rate of fire buff to 3, but it produces so much heat you can not fire 2 of them.

So either add 4 heat to the Gauss rifle, or take 4 heat off the PPC.

Or balance heat in the first place.

[John Norad]

Nice analysis.
Basically, doubling armor, more or less doubling damage and heat generation, but not doubling heat dissipation is a bad idea.

Personally, I like to pick examples to illustrate balance problems, instead of graphs or tables, although those are more comprehensive. Could be because I'm too lazy to write that much, but I think it's easier to understand and boils it down to an essence.
When it comes to heat in MW:O, this example would be the comparison between the PPC and the Gauss. Two big, long range, high damage weapons. The first pretty much generates the most heat, while the second generates very little.

When you look at the TT and how many tons you need to use both weapons, it's quite balanced.
PPC weights 7t and generates 10 heat, so you need 10t of heat sinks to negate that. Total 17t.
Gauss weights 15t and generates 1 heat. Add 2-3 tons of ammo and you get around 19t total.
The PPC doesn't need ammo and can't explode, but the Gauss has more range and 50% more damage. Apart from that it can destroy a mech's head with one shot and still works well after engine hits. So overall the Gauss is a bit better despite the slight weight disadvantage.

Now in MW:O that balance is out of the window due to doubled heat. You could say it is ok since relatively spoken both weapons generate more heat. But balance doesn't always work in relations. Sometimes you also have to look at the absolute differences. And that's a 9 points heat difference that gets doubled.
17t become 27t and 19t become 20t if you want to shoot both weapons twice in 10s. 27 vs 20 definitely is not balanced anymore, especially when the weapon requiring fewer tons deals more burst damage, has more range, and doesn't require heat sinks in addition to the free 10.

Lefty Lucy, on 04 November 2012 - 02:51 PM, said:

I feel like if they *drastically* decreased the RoF of Gauss and LRMs then the game would be improved greatly. Gauss should probably fire once every 7-8 seconds.

Very much this. The only real good option to balance the Gauss is rate of fire. Heat would be very arbitrary and against the original design. Dps on the other hand is viable and in fact a very common approach to high alpha/sniper weapons in games.
Also with a less constant rain of LRMs, they would be easier to counter, giving a bigger window of opportunity to get into cover or advance on their position.

Edited by John Norad, 04 November 2012 - 06:38 PM.

[Draco Argentum]

MCXL, on 04 November 2012 - 03:48 PM, said:

I'll be doing another post about the illusion of choice later as well.

It's a design trap.

I'd very much like to see this. Its a common design trap in many games. In essence, anything that can be solved by a computer is a fake choice. WoW's old talent trees being the prime example. As soon as spreadsheets/java applets were created to determine the build with maximum DPS it went from millions of theoretical choices to 10-20 choices of where to put the last few talents that wouldn't increase DPS.

[The Echo Inside]

Hmm, correct me if I'm interpreting this incorrectly... But, based on the current means of combat then (with constant resupply between matches and the ability to very rarely run out of ammunition)...

Effectively (in the practical/applied sense), what this data shows is that any weapon or 'mech that isn't run as heat neutral, grows proportionally less effective over time, until it plateaus at periods of "no function" at the heat maximum. Whereas a heat neutral weapon/'mech will never lose effectiveness, or reach anywhere near that threshold of ineffectiveness.

Or to say it another way, extended combat with anything that isn't heat neutral grows progressive weaker/less capable, without significant rest periods, whereas something heat neutral will never reach that degree of inefficiency.

It seems that it's actually more forgiving in engagements to miss with an low heat ammo based weapon, than it is to miss with a high heat energy based weapon (due to total cycle times when heat is included), to such a degree that it completely negates the "ammunition conservation" consideration then.

I find that rather disappointing actually, as it seems like it will heavily limit tactics/strategy, even when larger maps/teams are introduced.

[Tuhalu]

There are two base causes here.

Cause #1:

• Doubling or tripling the rate of fire on high heat weapons has far less of an effect on their firing rate than it does on low heat weapons.

This is extremely obvious in the case of ER PPC vs Gauss Rifle. But it is also obvious to a lesser extent on a variety of other weapons. The numbers for this have been shown.

Cause #2:

• Most "new tech" (tier 2) weapons are designed with an increase in heat cost to offset additional range or additional accuracy (also at the cost of range!) that relies on the potency of double heat sinks to make sense.

A mech with 10 heat sinks can fire his PPC once every 10 seconds while moving (assuming movement generates 1 heat). Upgrading to an ER PPC and the 1.4 rating double heat sinks allows him to fire once every 10 seconds. No extra damage, no extra fire rate, no spare heat to fire another weapon. Just a little extra range. At a very high cost in critical slots used, outlay of C-Bills and repair costs between battles.

The same rationale applies to the upgrade from large lasers to ER large lasers.

A similar rationale applies to the upgrade from regular lasers to pulse lasers. You get higher accuracy (faster firing in MWO) and a minimal increase in base damage for a halving of range and an increase in heat.

There need to be two base solutions:
Solution #1:

• The heat cost of weapons needs to be rebalanced against their firing rate so as to balance tonnage of weapons + heat sinks. High heat weapons need to be cooler, low heat weapons need to be hotter.

This has been implemented in fits and bursts. Small and Medium lasers and pulse lasers increased in heat. Regular and ER LLs and PPCs have been decreased in heat.

The AC/20 and Gauss Rifle also need balancing for heat. The AC/20 needs to lose at least 1 heat per shot (that extra heat payed for the crippling effect of 20 damage on a mech with regular armor levels anyway!). The Gauss Rifle needs to gain at least 3 heat per shot.

The other ballistics, are fairly well balanced as to heat over time, being largely in the realm of 1-1.5 heat per second.

Nearly all missile weapons need some rebalancing as to heat. SRMS saw a 50% increase in damage for a 0 increase in heat. LRMs have seen a doubling in damage for a 0 increase in heat. Tweak all of those up by 1 heat as a start.

Solution #2:

• The heat costs of ER and Pulse weapons need to be balanced against the change in the power of double heat sinks.

The only weapons it really applies to are the ER PPC, ER LL and LPL. LPL should be 8 heat (down from 9). ER LL should be 9 heat (down from 10). ER PPC should be 11 heat (down from 13).

Once all these tweaks are implemented, weapons will correctly rebalanced and then we can look to see how under or over performing heat sinks really are!

[Beo Vulf]

This was a good post and an even better question that you posed. I would be interested to here a reply from PGI.

[buckX]

Although never specifically stated, I think it's fair to assume at this point that PGI's design philosophy is to make heat neutral builds not a thing. If they wanted to make it balance the way the TT does, I imagine they would have caved to the forum QQ and made heatsinks dissipate a unit of heat every 4 seconds a long time ago.

So I think they're in a state where they want overheating to be a concern, but haven't followed up on the balance ramifications of the way they did it (rof buff). What I've seen discussed very little is that if you want mechs to run hot, but don't want to screw up balance, you need to change the relative heat values of different weapons. Lets look at our different options for medium long ranged damage, namely the Large Laser, the PPC, the AC10, and the Gauss Rifle. Now, there are some relevant unique traits to each of those (LL has burn time, PPCs have a minimum range, and AC10 and Gauss knock cockpits), but lets set those aside for now. We'll compare the weights necessary to make a system that provides 15 damage/round (30 damage/10 seconds in MWO)

Exactly what quantity of ammo is fair is debatable, but I find the 4 ton (600 damage) amount to work out quite well for being spammy with a gauss rifle, and will use that as the amount for 1.5 AC10s as well.

LL: 8 Heat, 8 damage, 5 tons+8 tons of heatsink
1.875 LL: 15 heat, 15 damage, 9.375 tons + 15 tons of heatsink = 24.375 tons (18.75 crits)

PPC: 10 heat, 10 damage, 7 tons + 10 tons of heatsink
1.5 PPC: 15 heat, 15 damage, 10.5 tons + 15 tons of heatsink = 25.5 tons (19.5 crits)

AC10: 3 heat, 10 damage, 12 tons + 3 tons of heatsink + 2.67 tons of ammo
1.5 AC10: 4.5 heat, 15 damage, 18 tons + 4.5 tons of heatsink + 4 tons of ammo = 26.5 tons (15.5 crits)

Gauss: 1 heat, 15 damage, 15 tons + 1 ton of heatsink + 4 tons of ammo = 20 tons (12 crits)

Now, on the TT, the Gauss shares the PPC's disadvantage of having a minimum range, but it's still clear that it's a high quality weapon. That's offset by being Level 2, and costing quite a bit of BV, which isn't a mechanic in MWO. I assume that PGI's goal is to make every weapon have a place, even if it's lower tech level (as indicated by their 1.4DHS plan), which I can get behind. In a sim, you don't want people in a lower "BV" mech to feel useless, or like fodder for the high price tag mechs.
That said, I think we'd all like to see the builds that are supported be similar to TT, with similar amounts of weaponry to heatsinks, etc., even if we can't fire on the cooldown anymore. In that vein, I am going to preserve the TT heatsink numbers from above, but add in a number for how many seconds of spam fire you can do before shutting down (within the microcosm of that weapon group) I think it's fair to assume that 2 large lasers are only a portion of the weapons you will want to fire, so I will assume "overheat" means 30 undissipated heat from that weapon group alone. In any case, here's the numbers for MWO (with halved damage to match up with TT effects)

LL: 16.5 heat, 10.6 damage, 5 tons+8 tons of heatsink
1.42 LL: 23.35 heat, 15 damage, 7.08 tons + 15 tons of heatsink = 22.08 tons (17.84 crits) 36 second overheat

PPC: 30 heat, 16.67 damage, 7 tons + 10 tons of heatsink
0.9 PPC: 27 heat, 15 damage, 6.3 tons + 9 tons of heatsink = 15.3 tons (9.7 crits) 16.7 second overheat

AC10: 12 heat, 20 damage, 12 tons + 3 tons of heatsink + 2.67 tons of ammo
0.5 AC10: 6 heat, 10 damage, 6 tons + 1.5 tons of heatsink + 4 tons of ammo = 11.5 tons (9 crits) 66.7 second overheat

Gauss: 2.5 heat, 18.75 damage, 15 tons + 1 ton of heatsink + 4 tons of ammo = 20 tons (12 crits)
0.8 Gauss: 2 heat, 15 damage 12 tons + .8 tons of heatsink + 4 tons of ammo = 16.8 tons (10.4 crits) 250 second overheat

So certain weapons have changed a lot in characteristic, particularly the very fast firing AC10. I think it's fair to say that if a weapon system got a large increase in dps (ie. you need fewer tons committed to having weapons), then its relative heat should go up, since you've freed up weight to spend on heatsinks. These weapon systems were all 20-26.5 tons in the TT, but since the "effective dps" on everything has gone up a bit, lets set the target at 20 tons, and see what kind of adjustments to heat generation are needed to all come to a similar time to overheat.

1.42 LL: 20.05 heat, 15 damage, 7.08 tons + 13 tons of heatsink = 20.08 tons (15.84 crits) 42.6 second overheat

0.9 PPC: 21 heat, 15 damage, 6.3 tons + 14 tons of heatsink = 20.3 tons (14.7 crits) 42.9 second overheat

0.5 AC10: 18 heat, 10 damage, 6 tons + 10 tons of heatsink + 4 tons of ammo = 20 tons (17.5 crits) 37.5 second overheat

0.8 Gauss: 12 heat, 15 damage 12 tons + 5 tons of heatsink + 4 tons of ammo = 21 tons (15.3 crits) 42.9 second overheat

Here are the heat numbers for a single shot of each weapon that were used to balance that out:
Large Laser: 6 (currently 7)
PPC: 7 (currently 9)
AC10: 9 (currently 3)
Gauss: 6 (currently 1)

The LL and PPC have been discussed at length, and reason for the change there is obvious. Heat generation went up, and heat dissipation didn't. The Gauss is a similar story, but from the other direction. It is very low heat, so it got better relative to the hot weapons. The AC10 is more interesting. By dropping the CD all the way to 2.5, it got massively buffed relative to things like the LL, which has a CD of 4.25. Although both have the same ROF on the TT, the AC10 now fires 70% faster. Since it now provides dps for so little weight (normally something that energy weapons did), it now needs heat like an energy weapon (or a ROF change to be more like other weapons).

I said I wouldn't consider the additional effects of weapons earlier, but I will make my plug now. The Gauss lost its minimum range (a good change), and the PPC didn't (what?). Either this has to change, or the PPC needs even further buffs to account for the fact that it isn't just suboptimal at short range, it's useless. I would drop the heat to 6 or get rid of the minimum range (if a disruption effect is added, the severity of that obviously has a huge balance effect). I also personally dislike that the AC2 and AC20 knock a mech around the same amount. I wouldn't shed a single tear if AC shake was directly tied to the damage inflicted.

Edited by buckX, 04 November 2012 - 09:31 PM.

[SpiralRazor]

What you leave out though Buck, is that you can have a collection of Large Lasers....you cannot have a collection of Ac/10s...Also, its currently massively easier to land damage from Large Lasers then it is from AC/10s...a fact compounded by that the faster your opponents going, the harder it is to land AC shells on them...wheres with lasers you can pretty much splash damage on anything, and on slow mechs you can take there heads clean off with a good connection and fast rendering card.

[F lan Ker]

S!

Very interesting read all of this. Thank You for posting. Food for thought.

[MustrumRidcully]

There are basically two directions from which one can go

1) Take a weapon and consider how much it would cost to run for a reasonable time (enough ammo) and not overheat. Compare with damage between weapons inflicted with this setup.
2) Take a weapon without adding heat sinks and see how long it lasts ,and compare the damage it inflicts in that time.

2) can get a bit more challenging since a single weapon will not necessarily overheat a typical mech's heat capacity fast. One can help by increase.
There are "compromise" solutions between 1 and 2 - set a time you want to last and pack the necessary heat sinks for that, then compare damage and weight. (TET Efficiency)


And ifnally, you can forget about individual weapons and instead compare variant mech configurations.

[RAM]

MCXL, on 04 November 2012 - 12:24 PM, said:

Section Two: Heat as a Resource

(I cast AC/20)

Most people don't know it, but heat is actually mana from a gameplay perspective. Yup, these robots we pilot, they are actually role playing characters.

Bear with me here, let's compare these two systems:

• Every attack you make uses a certain amount
  
• You regenerate a set amount per turn (or per second) based on items
  
• You gain a larger pool based on items

There are some unique quirks about a Battletech champion though,

• You use mana by moving
  
• You suffer penalties for using too much mana too quickly, (in TT)
  
• You lose courteousness if you overexert yourself fully, and depending on how much determines how long you'r out for.
  
• Getting hurt makes you regenerate mana slower (though this is a function of losing inventory as you get hurt)

I think the best way to look at the system is that Mana in BT is more of a 'lifesource' magical resource, then the more common, "I'm a mage and I hold this much mana in my backpack." type that most games employ. So all minor actions, including being couscous cost mana in BT.

The point of a resource system like mana is to restrict the player to the point that they make choices about what they do. Spend all my mana now? Doll it out slowly? Choices through restriction, pretty common in game design.

Oh also, Ammo is charges.

First, I clearly disagree with any assessment that ignores the proper canonical recycle of the weapons as it serves nothing more than to obfuscate the issue due to uninformed sensationalism and prevents far more accurate analyses. For example the argument is not why they sped it up from 1/10 but rather why they changed them from what they actually should be – this is especially evident when it is called out as an important point to remember…

Nevertheless, very interesting comparison of heat to mana – although while I see what you are doing I am not sure it completely captures the intricacies of the actual system.

Cheers!


RAM
ELH

[Wintersprite]

This is a perfect model post for constructive feedback. The devs would do well to take a note of it.

As for the topic I have nothing more to add there. It really doesn't matter if the numbers are the same as in TT when the foundation is different. The weapons need some tweaking.

[Yokaiko]

RAM, on 05 November 2012 - 01:00 AM, said:

First, I clearly disagree with any assessment that ignores the proper canonical recycle of the weapons as it serves nothing more than to obfuscate the issue due to uninformed sensationalism and prevents far more accurate analyses. For example the argument is not why they sped it up from 1/10 but rather why they changed them from what they actually should be – this is especially evident when it is called out as an important point to remember…

Nevertheless, very interesting comparison of heat to mana – although while I see what you are doing I am not sure it completely captures the intricacies of the actual system.

Cheers!


RAM
ELH

The why is simple, there are mechs that don't have extensive loadouts. So leaving the ROF at 10 seconds would grossly overpower certain builds i.e. the HBK-4P and AWS-9M raw number of hardpoints would dictate the effectiveness of a chassis.

Why damage and heat were not normized to reflect this change is beyond me. Damage was left at canon value and heat as well. Cutting damage and heat by half, or doubling the rate of the heat cycle would be more elegant, heat in particular, high heat weapons remain hot, and low heat rapid fire are steady.

Which would make lasers even more scary, but that is another topic.

[Farmer]

MCXL, on 04 November 2012 - 01:13 PM, said:

I honestly don't want to intimidate people. If you agree, if you don't, if you don't care, I'm still interested in your feedback.

I might or might not have just sent the people at the PA report a link to your post with a note about how it was one man with a calculator proving the devs wrong.

[RAM]

Yokaiko, on 05 November 2012 - 02:05 AM, said:

The why is simple, there are mechs that don't have extensive loadouts. So leaving the ROF at 10 seconds would grossly overpower certain builds i.e. the HBK-4P and AWS-9M raw number of hardpoints would dictate the effectiveness of a chassis.

Seeing as you got it wrong, it may not be as simple as one would think


RAM
ELH