269 replies to this topic

[MCXL]

My team (spell check) sucks.

[Farmer]

Actually, if you read any of the canon fluff, RoF in TT is 100% an abstraction. Several of the autocannons are described as single shot, variable fire mode, or rapid fire depending on the manufacturer. Likewise, the different engine manufacturers all made different sized and shaped engines that were all rolled into one weight and crit space for simplicity as an abstraction. Sounds weird, but that's how it was done back in the day. It's like attacks in D&D. You only make "one" but you're swinging the whole round.

[Sarevos]

Farmer, on 09 November 2012 - 03:06 PM, said:

Actually, if you read any of the canon fluff, RoF in TT is 100% an abstraction. Several of the autocannons are described as single shot, variable fire mode, or rapid fire depending on the manufacturer. Likewise, the different engine manufacturers all made different sized and shaped engines that were all rolled into one weight and crit space for simplicity as an abstraction. Sounds weird, but that's how it was done back in the day. It's like attacks in D&D. You only make "one" but you're swinging the whole round.

ooh a veteran of the D&D crowd =D. The thing is if the round is 10 seconds long all weapons should be based on the TT values for the amount of damage possible over 10 seconds which means all of the weapons available now are horribly overpowered and thus explained the need for double armor values found in tt and why heat is unbalanced if the heat is over 10 seconds and damage is over 10 seconds it should be TT damage/heat value over 10 seconds to get DPS/HPS right? im just taking a wild swing at it as i just got off work =P

[Sarevos]

hold on this is a BLATANT miscalculation on the part of the devs for balance...

[Sarevos]

if were balancing the game on TT values then the AC20 currently does 28 damage per "round" (if fired constantly over 10 seconds when available) and generates the heat of 2 rounds of firing in 1 round no wonder the whole thing is borked right now XD there was a fundamental misstep in the process

although im not sure

[Delta66]

So is Heat the thing that needs to be rebalanced? Or do the weapons need a 1 by 1 heat pass?

[Squidhead Jax]

Delta66, on 09 November 2012 - 04:40 PM, said:

So is Heat the thing that needs to be rebalanced? Or do the weapons need a 1 by 1 heat pass?

The former is definitely needed, but the latter will probably still be necessary for cleanup.

[Vapor Trail]

Squidhead Jax, on 09 November 2012 - 05:10 PM, said:

The former is definitely needed, but the latter will probably still be necessary for cleanup.

Agreed. Best we can do is keep throwing math at the Devs until they cry uncle and tell us to stop, keep throwing math until something happens, or until 'Launch.'

[MCXL]

If PGI explained why the game has been designed to play the way it is, then the math crafting wouldn't matter anymore. It's PGI's game and they are entitled to change it as they see fit, no matter what people think about the changes.

I still haven't found anything explaining how they want the balance between mech types to be other than:

They don't want a mech weight arms race.

[Lycan]

Protection, on 08 November 2012 - 02:02 PM, said:

The problem with totally redesigning the heat system at this point (or redesigning every weapon with respect to it) - I doubt the devs are ready to implement such a drastic change, and even if they did, it would still require hundreds of man hours to retweak and prevent massively overpowered designs from emerging.

Actually, this would be the perfect time for them to do something like that.

Because, as everyone just loves pointing out . . this BETA!!!

And that's where those kind of changes need to be made.

[Targetloc]

Thontor, on 08 November 2012 - 05:14 PM, said:

the problem with nerfing medium lasers to account for convergence, is you are making just having 1 or 2 of them useless.. they would need to be boated to be effective at all

There is an exact DPS per ton value where medium lasers are good value individually, and not OP when boated. Of course like LRMs you won't use a bunch of 5's when you have the tonnage to fit a larger rack because of hardpoints. But mediums will still be the defacto secondary weapon for most mechs because like Jello you can always find room for a 1 ton, 1 crit weapon with unlimited ammo.

[Grugore]

I made it half way through the second page and my head started hurting. I'm just glad it's not MY job to worry about game balance.

[Farmer]

MCXL, on 09 November 2012 - 08:07 PM, said:

They don't want a mech weight arms race.

They sorta do, though. Remember their response when we first complained about the trial grind? They do want us to climb from light to assault. It's how they imagine progression. The only time they've said they didn't want an arms race was when regiggering prices and whatnot for L2 tech.

[Allekatrase]

I always assumed the balance is that medium lasers and smaller fit on smaller chassis where it is difficult to fit the required equipment to run larger weapons. These smaller chassis shouldn't have the same amount of punch as larger chassis unless they sacrifice a lot to get it (and even then they probably won't be quite as strong). As an example I feel like jenners do too much damage for the amount of mobility they have currently, largely due to the way streaks and small-medium lasers currently work.

If you nerf the damage on small to medium lasers then those smaller chassis that can only fit a few of them anyway do less damage as I feel they're supposed to do less damage. Large chassis, like the AWS8-Q will find it undesireable to boat medium lasers because fitting combinations of larger energy weapons would give them better damage, as it should.

Basically, you make boating undesirable by giving them better options when they have the tonnage to fit it. You have to find a balance somewhere though. Maybe common hunchback boating moves to mediums more often than small lasers but if medium lasers have lower damage and heat dissipation is improved it works out.

[Farmer]

Not really. The problem is the core of the heat system. MLAS were the gold standard in TT. They were used across the weight spectrum, and had one of the best damage/heat/tonnage ratios in the game. They were ALWAYS useful.

[Allekatrase]

Farmer, on 10 November 2012 - 09:50 AM, said:

Not really. The problem is the core of the heat system. MLAS were the gold standard in TT. They were used across the weight spectrum, and had one of the best damage/heat/tonnage ratios in the game. They were ALWAYS useful.

I'm not sure if I was unclear or if this is even aimed at me. I'm not saying they wouldn't be useful on a larger chassis, just that boating them on larger chassis wouldn't be that useful. On something like a hunchback or a jenner medium lasers would be probably the largest weapons you would want to fit. On something like an AWS8-Q you'd want to fit something bigger. However, the Awesome is not going to be able to fit the larger things in all of it's slots and therefore will most likely fill in the remaining slots with either medium or small lasers. They would still be useful, it just wouldn't be at the point it is now where it's pretty much more useful to fit medium lasers because heat is so hard to manage for the larger ones.

Also, if one weapon is the gold standard that's always useful, how is that balanced? Well, that's a bad question. If everyone uses the same weapon it's balanced. The question should be how is that desirable? Where's the variety? Or am I missing something?

[Indoorsman]

Allekatrase, on 10 November 2012 - 05:14 PM, said:

Also, if one weapon is the gold standard that's always useful, how is that balanced?

It's not, glad some other people realize that too

[Draco Argentum]

Allekatrase, on 10 November 2012 - 05:14 PM, said:

Also, if one weapon is the gold standard that's always useful, how is that balanced? Well, that's a bad question. If everyone uses the same weapon it's balanced. The question should be how is that desirable? Where's the variety? Or am I missing something?

Part of that is because its powerful. The other part is that there aren't any ballistic weapons that are comparable. Even the AC2 weighs 6 tons. So if you want a small backup weapon of some kind its either a low end laser or perhaps an SRM.

[Antony Weiner]

MCXL, on 08 November 2012 - 01:37 PM, said:

I don't appreciate the pointless negative contribution.

I could add a TL;DR that said, "this game needs more heat dissipation if people want TT balanced stats." But, without actually understanding the math behind it, what would be the point? I don't think you get this thread, or why I need people to read, and understand something instead of just taking my word for it.

Maybe you are the one that needs to "grow up".

EDIT: Oops on double post, thought I was in editor.

Here is a reason why you should provide an Abstract for your work: so the reader knows that it is worth his time to read your work. I do not have endless time, and I am not going to take a gamble that your stuff might be good.

[ArmyOfWon]

This.... this post was everything I had ever hoped to convey on the subject of heat efficiencies.... and I didn't even have to do anything!

Cheers, MCXL! Very well written and articulated! Hopefully the devs won't go "Meh, tldr"