13 replies to this topic

[tPagen]

The original idea here. So I, like many other people, have been pondering how to balance the weapons in MWO while still making them all individual. I came across two key details in the threads that I've seen:

• the round in TT equals 10 seconds
  
• all weapons in MWO have recycle times less than 10 seconds

So, I came up with this:


Y=XR/10

Y is MWO damage or heat for a specific weapon in the game, X is TT damage or heat for the same weapon, and R is the Recycle Time for that weapon. As an example, here are the modified stats for the most discused about weapon in the game: the Gauss Rifle:
Damage:
Y=(15)(4)/10
Y=60/10
Y=6

Heat:
Y=(1)(4)/10
Y=4/10
Y=0.4

As you can see, with a recycle time of 4 seconds, it should have a damage of 6 and should generate 0.4 heat per shot. Now lets look at the PPC:

Damage
Y=(10)(3)/10
Y=30/10
Y=3

Heat
Y=(10)(3)/10
Y=30/10
Y=3

Damage: 3
Heat: 3
As you can see, the DPS of each weapon becomes similar to TT and so does heat per second. Thus, stock 'Mechs become viable again. Also, the Time to Kill someone is much longer, justifying the removal of double armor values. Finally, this opens the doors for future balancing decisions later on. I hope some Dev sees this.

Edited by zenthon, 05 November 2012 - 07:03 PM.

[Grimmenstein]

Saw your other post of this equation in another topic, Very good Idea, currently balance is a big problem. The Devs have said that TT numbers are to be a basic guidline, with balance tweaks as necessary. Seems like we are a long way from TT without any balance. I would be thrilled if the Devs seriously considered this as a basis for balance. I am currently unable to compete in any mech with a stock loadout. Everything must be stripped and reconfigured just to make the game playable. I think this would go a long way toward making the Ballistic weapons other than gauss viable again.

Also posted in the other topic was the ammo/ton would need to balanced accordingly.

[Hubis]

TT isn't an appropriate metric for balance because there's no really good way to accurately model "to-hit" odds in a game with player aiming and real-time movement. Even if you wanted to mirror TT perfectly, you'd have to go a long way beyond just actual DPS -- you'd have to be measuring player hit-rates at various ranges with each weapon, bin the players by estimated "skill level", correlate those bins to pilot ratings, and only THEN try and match the EXPECTED VALUE of the damage to the DPS of the weapon in question. It goes way beyond simply copying TT dps, simply because a hit is no longer a fair die roll.

[Grimmenstein]

Hubis, on 04 November 2012 - 10:45 PM, said:

TT isn't an appropriate metric for balance because there's no really good way to accurately model "to-hit" odds in a game with player aiming and real-time movement. Even if you wanted to mirror TT perfectly, you'd have to go a long way beyond just actual DPS -- you'd have to be measuring player hit-rates at various ranges with each weapon, bin the players by estimated "skill level", correlate those bins to pilot ratings, and only THEN try and match the EXPECTED VALUE of the damage to the DPS of the weapon in question. It goes way beyond simply copying TT dps, simply because a hit is no longer a fair die roll.

Good point, but it seems like a better starting point than what we currently have. I might also add that using TT for baseline is about making the weapons feel like your in BT even after all of the things you mentioned are taken into account. I just dont see it where we are right now.

[Hubis]

Yeah, I will certainly grant that.

I guess my point is that the problem right now is not the damage rates, but all those intangibles I listed above. In TT, 85kph is supposed to be considered pretty decently fast; however, in MWO players can aim fast enough that it doesn't really afford an increase in survivability corresponding to what the to-hit bonus would imply. Once that falls apart, a lot of other things become problematic -- lights with smaller than a 250 engine are too slow to dodge and too fragile to tank, and many of your mediums become unwieldy. You still see some of this advantage in your Jenner-vs-Atlas fights, but it's a much sharper transition, and at a much higher speed. The same problems come into play for range penalties as well. I'd much rather see focus on making the weapons/mechs really "feel" like Battletech before we worry about whether they hurt like they're supposed to -- to me, that's the much harder part.

[Grimmenstein]

True, the scale of things does seem to be off. I think map scale / mech scale/ speed are definately off. but you could balance this with larger maps, different scaling of speed, and different size mechs. But I don't see how to separate the feel you mentioned from weapon fire, movement, and size, everthing has a feel to it. changing fire rates is as important as making a mech moving at a good clip harder to hit. Weapon balance is also very important, I don't have too big a problem with gauss cats, but they don't seem to balance well with other ballistics, energy weapons, or missles. Essentially this is a debate about weapons as they pertain to the overall feel.

[MustrumRidcully]

Thanks for the posting the thread, zenthon! It's a good idea, and I support it.

I agree with other posters that say a real time game like MW:O is not the same as a turn based table top game.

Mouse aiming instead of RNG changes a bit.

But - fundamentally, this isn't all that relevant to discussing the balance of weapons against each other. It's more a question of balancing the possible, overall damage output against the mech hit points (armor), or the balance of mech chassis hit boxes.

But if one weapon can add 15 extra points of damage in 10 seconds for the cost of one ton in heat sinks, and another weapon can add 10 extra points of damage in 10 seconds for the cost of 10 tons in heat sinks, then this is a balance issue. Independently of whether mechs have 5 hit points or 500 hit points.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 05 November 2012 - 12:31 AM.

[TheMightyServo]

zenthon - that does keep the feel of damage and TT... but it also takes away the same level of catastrophic damage from individual hits. I could see reload times going up on some weapons like ACs and gauss and the like just to maintain the devastating hits of individual blasts, though. It'd also keep heavier weapons fearsome.

At the same time, from Sarna:

Quote

Autocannons range in caliber from 30mm up to 203mm and are loosely grouped according to their damage vs armor.^[1] The exact same caliber of shell fired in a 100 shot burst to do 20 damage will have a shorter effective range than when fired in a 10 shot burst to do 2 damage due to recoil and other factors.

This could be implemented into reload time... letting the devs do ACs with different reload speeds as well.

Sounds like a pretty solid idea, but would be interested in seeing how it might work.

[Rutok]

Hubis, on 04 November 2012 - 10:45 PM, said:

TT isn't an appropriate metric for balance because there's no really good way to accurately model "to-hit" odds in a game with player aiming and real-time movement. Even if you wanted to mirror TT perfectly, you'd have to go a long way beyond just actual DPS -- you'd have to be measuring player hit-rates at various ranges with each weapon, bin the players by estimated "skill level", correlate those bins to pilot ratings, and only THEN try and match the EXPECTED VALUE of the damage to the DPS of the weapon in question. It goes way beyond simply copying TT dps, simply because a hit is no longer a fair die roll.

Or you could make piloting the Mech actually hard. For example: you could implement the environment shaking that has been suggested countless times in the forum (not just shake the cockpit frame while you glide through the world). Suddenly running at top speed with a jenner would feel like a "pilot skill roll".

You could have knockdowns after taking a lot of damage.. and something like a quick time event reaction thing to avoid falling down (like push f5, f3, f9 quickly).

And you could introduce something like physics simulation.. where mechs have to slow down before turning really tight corners.

There is so much more that can be done but i guess you get my point

[TheMightyServo]

Quote

Or you could make piloting the Mech actually hard. For example: you could implement the environment shaking that has been suggested countless times in the forum (not just shake the cockpit frame while you glide through the world). Suddenly running at top speed with a jenner would feel like a "pilot skill roll".

You could have knockdowns after taking a lot of damage.. and something like a quick time event reaction thing to avoid falling down (like push f5, f3, f9 quickly).

And you could introduce something like physics simulation.. where mechs have to slow down before turning really tight corners.

Having a somewhat stabilized platform is the purpose of the gyro, but there's also a reason that chances to hit drastically drop when you run in TT.

Knockdowns with additional buttons and mini-games I'm not so sure about. It could be combined with piloting keys by making it so either you walk back into the source of the knockdown to regain your balance or fall - so you have to turn your torso to where you took the hit and turn into it, rather than a mini-game.

Slowing in the tight corners, or causing you to lose control, or automatic slowdown on tight corners, veritcal terrain, and in water would go a great deal to solving a lot of problems.

[Rutok]

If you are inside a moving vehicle of any type, the world around you will always "move" a little. Even if its just the perspective change from moving up and down during a step. No matter how good the gyro is. And it wouldnt have to be much. But there should be something to make it harder to hit something while running at 120km/h over rough terrain.. and its more fair than having random bullet spread.

[TheMightyServo]

Rutok, on 05 November 2012 - 01:36 AM, said:

If you are inside a moving vehicle of any type, the world around you will always "move" a little. Even if its just the perspective change from moving up and down during a step. No matter how good the gyro is. And it wouldnt have to be much. But there should be something to make it harder to hit something while running at 120km/h over rough terrain.. and its more fair than having random bullet spread.

Agreed.

[Hubis]

Rutok, on 05 November 2012 - 01:12 AM, said:

Or you could make piloting the Mech actually hard. For example: you could implement the environment shaking that has been suggested countless times in the forum (not just shake the cockpit frame while you glide through the world). Suddenly running at top speed with a jenner would feel like a "pilot skill roll".

You could have knockdowns after taking a lot of damage.. and something like a quick time event reaction thing to avoid falling down (like push f5, f3, f9 quickly).

And you could introduce something like physics simulation.. where mechs have to slow down before turning really tight corners.

There is so much more that can be done but i guess you get my point

I think one of the easiest ways to achieve this is to slow down the response rate for torso weapons. Tracking high-speed targets (or tracking targets while at high speed) would be much harder if twist / arm speeds were slower, forcing players to move at a slower "walk" pace if they wanted to hit more consistently. Right now I have pretty decent accuracy with at least my arm weapons when moving at full "run" speed with my mech, which contributes a lot to the speed inflation I think MWO suffers from. Once you do that, slower mechs with more weapon tonnage become more viable, and encounter ranges could easily extend outwards from the 100-300m range where they currently sit to the 200-600m range, which I think would inherently buff a lot of overlooked weapons (ERLL comes to mind).

[tPagen]

Thanks for the replies. I see what a lot of you guys are trying to say. Heat and damage aren't the only places that can be changed. Well, I haven't played 20 million games, so I don't have a lot of metrics for how much player skill affects weapon balance, but this is a start. A foundation for future balancing tweaks.

Edited by zenthon, 06 November 2012 - 07:55 PM.