532 replies to this topic

[EverCross]

I've been playing Mechwarrior/Battletech games since TT and when they made their way to console and PC I jumped on them and enjoyed them for many many years.

First and foremost, this game IS Mechwarrior and Battletech. The devs are doing a good job of bringing yet another addition to the MW/BT family. They have to take a game that's loved and cherished by many and make it work in as fair a way as possible. Is it perfect? No, nor will it EVER be.

Lasers vs Ballistic
Gauss vs LRMS/PPC
Double heat vs Single

We're gonna be dealing with these for...um..ever? This game will NEVER be by the TT standards and ppl looking for that...I'm sorry, truly, but your gonna be disappointed. They can't make it like that for fear of someone crunching enough numbers to find that perfect ratio so they can fire forever with hard hitting weapons and NEVER approach over heating...yeah, no thanks please. I don't want easy mode spam. This game will NEVER be by the lore. The lore would actually have all none ER and pulse lasers do LESS damage every time it hits (that's some deep lore for ya) hence WHY they developed ER and pulse lasers.

No game will ever have 100% happiness rating. This game sits at about a 80-92% for me. I'm eager to see the changes to come. Danke

[Mazgazine1]

Go check the dev forum and the answers in the command chair!

The reason for DHSs not beeing 2 is BALANCE.

having DHS work as intended eliminated heat for some builds, essentially making them overpowered. 1.4 is still a huge boon, but wont make people go all techno rave with their mechs for as long.

[Matthew Ace]

Fooooo, on 06 November 2012 - 05:50 AM, said:

The post is in the command Chair forums, the one about DHS. http://mwomercs.com/...heat-sinks-dhs/ Heres a snippet that bryan posted (which is a quote from one of the lead guys who knows how the system works) Also, There has been no mention that the maximum heat capacity of 2 that DHS give will be changed when they change to 0.14 heat dissipation. So I expect that to stay as is.

Thanks, although I saw that earlier, and like what both of us has said, it does not seem to have any mention whether Heat capacity will be nerfed to 1.4 per DHS as well. I think less people will be up in arms about this if Heat Capacity is confirmed to remain at 2 (while the only thing that's changed is dissipation). I too was under the impression that it will be changed to +1.4 capacity/+0.14 dissipation

Edited by Matthew Ace, 06 November 2012 - 06:03 AM.

[Fooooo]

Matthew Ace, on 06 November 2012 - 05:59 AM, said:

Thanks, although I saw that earlier, and it does not seem to have any mention whether Heat capacity will be nerfed to 1.4 per DHS as well.

Yeah, there has been no mention of it, so expect it to stay at 2 for now.....tho there is always stealth changes that miss being on the notes so you never really know unless they state it unfortunately. (or test it in game)

Edited by Fooooo, 06 November 2012 - 06:02 AM.

[Squidhead Jax]

Rifter, on 05 November 2012 - 07:59 PM, said:

You are paying a huge premium for tier two tech that is WORSE than the tier one mech it is replacing.

^core problem

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

C'mon man. Of course things are going to have to change for balance. You think the Doom board game is the same experience as the computer game? Of course not.

And yet, they haven't re-engineered the stock 'mechs, which are apparently going to be the core of the f2p experience. This isn't some crazy design the OP came up with.

They're important to the paid experience, too; it's kind of stupid to sell a 'mech that's going to be unplayable as-bought

Rifter, on 05 November 2012 - 08:13 PM, said:

If you dont see the issue with upgrades that you pay more for being downgrades over cheaper supposedly worse tech i really dont know what to tell you.



Dont get me wrong, i agree it cant stay TT. But when it gets to the point when you are turning teir two tech upgrades into downgrades you are doing it wrong.

This. if they're not going to bother

Ghost Bear, on 05 November 2012 - 08:17 PM, said:

I stopped reading after the DHS phrase.

What part of "it broke the game, heat was no longer an issue" do you not get?

I get it, it just demonstrates that the devs live in some imaginary groupthink world where the deficient, lopsided implementation of the heat system doesn't knock most of the weapons out of balance anyway.

Mazgazine1, on 06 November 2012 - 05:53 AM, said:

Go check the dev forum and the answers in the command chair!

The reason for DHSs not beeing 2 is BALANCE.

having DHS work as intended eliminated heat for some builds, essentially making them overpowered. 1.4 is still a huge boon, but wont make people go all techno rave with their mechs for as long.

So a build that never has to see heat buildup is imbalanced? You mean they're finally dealing with the Gauss Rifle?

[Squidhead Jax]

Krivvan, on 06 November 2012 - 05:06 AM, said:

Doesn't the TT rely on BV in order to balance? Without that it's one of the most imbalanced tabletop games ever.

Yes, they started with an unbalanced system. They then punted it further from balance by failing to account for the imbalance inherent in unevenly speeding up a system in which the weapons have different ratios of time-based and non-time-based build limitations.

Edited by Squidhead Jax, 06 November 2012 - 06:28 AM.

[Purlana]

Their idea of balance is basically having large lasers and PPC's eliminated from the game. Time to add some more small / medium lasers, GRs, and LRMs to my mech!

Yeah, that's some good balancing....

Edited by Purlana, 06 November 2012 - 06:16 AM.

[Aym]

Vilheim, on 05 November 2012 - 08:27 PM, said:

By having it at its measly 1.4, I still believe double heat sinks will be a significant upgrade on most if not all builds,

I think the OP is over-reacting and that the dev's chose a low number so they could give a buff rather than a nerf down the line, but 1.4 will definitely NOT be an upgrade of ANY kind on "most if not all" mech builds. It will be an upgrade for most light and medium mech builds, and next to useless on most heavy and assault mech builds. If your expertise is only with light or medium mechs please don't make over-arching statements like this.

[Imagine Dragons]

I really wish that the heat meter was scaled in numbers, not percentages... it would help A LOT...

[Capp]

aspect, on 05 November 2012 - 09:40 PM, said:

Sooo...what about the mechwarrior titles that are also not mechwarrior titles by the OP's standards?



Good luck getting your DHS performance in that one...

Is that really the standard you want MWO to live up to?

[Endarius]

Helmer, on 05 November 2012 - 08:10 PM, said:

When developing MWO PGI started with the exact TableTop stats . As someone who has been testing since the early Friends and Family stages, I felt that the game (with a 1 - 1 TT translation) was simply not fun.
Small lasers on a fast moving 'mech was an instant win button, LRMs were grossly ineffective, and Autocannons were next to useless.

Although I can respect the opinion that perhaps PGI has strayed too far from the TT values, I feel that almost every single change has been for the better. Things are still in a state of balancing and fluctuation. Adherence to the original TT rules is great, however, there comes a time when the TT fail in a First Person setting such as this.
The TT rules were very complex for a TT game, however, they represent , in some cases, abstract values and concepts that are not needed in a environment such as this. The rules do not scale well and must be adapted.


Again, I can respect your opinion, I hope you can understand that perhaps not everyone will agree with you.


Cheers.

I would go further to state that while not all values are correct yet, (something PGI fully admits and is clearly still working on) the balance of the game is far better than it was a couple months ago when the numbers were closer to original TT. This game has to be playable in real time in the engine that is being used. This makes things alot different from a turn based tabletop game that uses freakin' DICE to determine hits. It's pretty much inane to think that the balance should carry over fully from one to the other. Tabletop was the starting point. We're past the start now. Any successful F2P is in a constant state of tweaking to maintain balance as the meta evolves, and I really don't see how this is any less a mechwarrior title than any other game. In fact it's still more faithful to BT than any of the MW4 titles, much less that travesty for the XBox. Maybe you should learn to manage your heat and operate within the parameters of THIS game instead of trying to say its "wrong," because you think the number values should be different to suit YOUR taste.

[Zyllos]

This game will never be balanced with TT due to one single fact, that PGI has said they will never change, convergence.

With convergence, multiple SBLs do just as much damage as an AC/10. Because of this, they moved away from TT by doubling armor because you can choose where your shots go (not 100% of the time but pretty darn close to it). When you can use an array of weapons to equate to another weapon, then you have to balance the weapons differently than the TT. Then you have the issues of having DHS like TT, which breaks the heat management, allowing those array of weapons to constantly fire (which I personally think is false because weapons firing more than twice in 10s, thus DHS would allow for longer firing periods, not indefinite firing periods).

Honestly, knowing that PGI will never remove convergence, I find that making balance is going to be EXTREMELY difficult. The Gauss Rifle is one major one. It was balanced in the TT due to firing the multiple Gauss Rifles would rarely ever hit the same location. In MWO, all weapons firing will hit the same location, always. There is NEVER a chance of them hitting a different location (which I think is another bug, if you notice, fire a laser weapon and drag it across a very close target to a further away target, you will notice that it INSTANTLY converges onto a single point instead of taking time to converge, which begs to differ, why have the skill that increases convergence by 7.5% if it is already instant?) so this makes array of weapons better than they should be.

My personal opinion, is they should make the heat matter even more. They need to add the heat penalties of slowing movement, turning speed, convergence speed, range of energy weapons, RoF for ballistic weapons, lock times of missile weapons, spread of SRMs, finally to random damage to internals (which is already in the game) have the same chance of causing a critical hit, thus giving chances to cause ammo explosions and destroying internal components (this includes the engines!!!! Why can we not critical the engines?). This scale should start at ~50%.

What this will do is allow for DHS to be returned to their 2.0 values. While this will allow low heat builds to never overheat by holding down the fire button, most likely those weapon loadouts will be SBL, SPL, or AC/2s because all other weapons will still generate too much heat to be held down constantly. This then forces individuals to manage heat or take penalties for using more heat. PGI will also need to make convergence of weapons take time, so array of weapons will hit hard in a point if you can keep a constant aim on a target, or spread the damage by converging to different distances. This also means that the Gauss Rifle needs to be pulled back in its CD, due to being removed from the heat management, to 8s. LRMs will need to be reduced back to 1.5 per LRM (never understood why they moved to 2.0, they were already good). This will make TAG that much more important by improving the accuracy of missiles (NARC should provide a lockable target outside of any LoS for ~3m, which PPC hits on the target or near the target should remove them).

Currently, the heat system only matters at the maximum value. There is no point to worry about heat until that point. What kind of heat management is that?

Edited by Zyllos, 06 November 2012 - 07:03 AM.

[van Uber]

Stormwolf, on 06 November 2012 - 03:32 AM, said:

I really don't see how SHS = fun.

SHS will only thrive in a 3025/3039 type setting.

Unless you throw Lore out the window and balance SHS in relation to DHS and make them both useful at different aspects.

This is not rocket science, this is basic game design. Creating an object that will accomplish the same thing as another object, only better, is bad. No matter what some novel claims.

[IIIuminaughty]

People expect too much

Edited by StrataDragoon, 06 November 2012 - 07:55 AM.

[Purlana]

van Uber, on 06 November 2012 - 07:50 AM, said:

Unless you throw Lore out the window and balance SHS in relation to DHS and make them both useful at different aspects.

This is not rocket science, this is basic game design. Creating an object that will accomplish the same thing as another object, only better, is bad. No matter what some novel claims.

Oh you mean like all the different LRM, and SRM launchers?

Maybe we should only have LRM 5's and SRM 2's. Also I guess we will never need any of the clan tech?

Edited by Purlana, 06 November 2012 - 07:57 AM.

[Viper69]

Clan tech will be a joke if a simple thing like DHS causes this much "imbalance". Im going to laugh my *** off at the madcat pilot with all his super hot ER lasers with shat DHSs to boot.

[zorak ramone]

Helmer, on 05 November 2012 - 08:10 PM, said:

When developing MWO PGI started with the exact TableTop stats . As someone who has been testing since the early Friends and Family stages, I felt that the game (with a 1 - 1 TT translation) was simply not fun.
Small lasers on a fast moving 'mech was an instant win button, LRMs were grossly ineffective, and Autocannons were next to useless.

Well then, they obviously did it wrong.

There is a way to translate CBT relative weapons balance into a real-time game with varying recycle times and differing weapons mechanics.

What you do is you is for each weapon you pick a recycle time you want it to have and then proportionally reduce damage and heat. For example, in CBT a PPC does 10 damage and 10 heat in a 10 second time period. If you want to give it a recycle of 5, you give it 5 damage, and 5 heat. You can also simulate damage spread and ranged weapon accuracy by tweaking recycle times:
-Give weapons with small damage packets in CBT shorter new recycle times (and therefore lower damage/shot)
-Give weapons with longer ranges longer recycle times (and therefore higher damage/shot)
-Give longer ranged lasers shorter beam durations than short range lasers
-Give pulse lasers even shorter beam durations

Following these guidelines, you get something that looks like this:

Wpn______Dmg___Ht____Cool__Spt___DPS____HPS_____HS____DHS____Ammo__DPS/Tton_DPS/Tton-DHS__Range
SL_______0.6___0.2___2.00____X___0.30___0.10___1.00___0.50___0.00____0.200____0.300_______1
SPL______0.6___0.4___2.00____X___0.30___0.20___2.00___1.00___0.00____0.100____0.150_______1
MPL______1.8___1.2___3.00____X___0.60___0.40___4.00___2.00___0.00____0.100____0.150_______2
ML_______1.5___0.9___3.00____X___0.50___0.30___3.00___1.50___0.00____0.125____0.200_______3
LPL______4.5___4.5___5.00____X___0.90___0.90___9.00___4.50___0.00____0.056____0.078_______3
AC20____12.0___4.2___6.00____9___2.00___0.70___7.00___3.50___2.78____0.084____0.099_______3
SRM6_____4.8___1.6___4.00___42___1.20___0.40___4.00___2.00___0.89____0.152____0.204_______3
SRM4_____3.2___1.2___4.00___63___0.80___0.30___3.00___1.50___0.60____0.143____0.195_______3
SRM2_____1.6___0.8___4.00__125___0.40___0.20___2.00___1.00___0.30____0.121____0.174_______3
SSRM2____1.6___0.8___4.00__125___0.40___0.20___2.00___1.00___0.30____0.105____0.143_______3
LL_______4.0___4.0___5.00____X___0.80___0.80___8.00___4.00___0.00____0.062____0.089_______5
AC10_____5.0___1.5___5.00___20___1.00___0.30___3.00___1.50___1.50____0.061____0.067_______5
ERLL_____4.8___7.2___6.00____X___0.80___1.20__12.00___6.00___0.00____0.047____0.073_______6
PPC______6.0___6.0___6.00____X___1.00___1.00__10.00___5.00___0.00____0.059____0.083_______6
AC5______2.0___0.4___4.00___50___0.50___0.10___1.00___0.50___0.75____0.051____0.054_______6
LBX10____5.0___1.0___5.00___20___1.00___0.20___2.00___1.00___1.50____0.069____0.074_______6
UAC5_____2.0___0.4___2.00___50___1.00___0.20___2.00___1.00___1.50____0.080____0.087_______7
GR______12.0___0.8___8.00___10___1.50___0.10___1.00___0.50___1.88____0.084____0.086_______7
LRM20___12.0___3.6___6.00___10___2.00___0.60___6.00___3.00___2.50____0.108____0.129_______7
LRM15____9.0___3.0___6.00___14___1.50___0.50___5.00___2.50___1.79____0.109____0.133_______7
LRM10____6.0___2.4___6.00___20___1.00___0.40___4.00___2.00___1.25____0.098____0.121_______7
LRM5_____3.0___1.2___6.00___40___0.50___0.20___2.00___1.00___0.63____0.108____0.138_______7
ERPPC____8.0__12.0___8.00____X___1.00___1.50__15.00___7.50___0.00____0.045____0.069_______8
AC2______0.6___0.3___3.00__150___0.20___0.10___1.00___0.50___0.33____0.027____0.029_______8

HS and DHS are the heat sinks and double-heat sinks (2.0 DHS) required for heat neutrality, and ammo is tons of ammo required for 2.5 minutes of continuous fire. DPS/TTon is the DPS per total tonnage (base+HS/DHS+ammo). Multiply Range by 90m to get approximate weapon range (its just a sorting variable for simplification). Note that this is without doubling armor/ton like they have in MWO. Also note that DPS = CBT damage and HPS = CBT heat. If you want to go with a double armor environment, you just double the damage values, and you change nothing about relative weapons balance and give numbers closer to what we have now.

Wpn______Dmg___Ht____Cool__Spt___DPS___HPS_____HS_____DHS____Ammo__PS/Tton__DPS/Tton-DHS___Range
SL_______1.2___0.2___2.00____X___0.60___0.10___1.00___0.50___0.00____0.400____0.600_______1
SPL______1.2___0.4___2.00____X___0.60___0.20___2.00___1.00___0.00____0.200____0.300_______1
MPL______3.6___1.2___3.00____X___1.20___0.40___4.00___2.00___0.00____0.200____0.300_______2
ML_______3.0___0.9___3.00____X___1.00___0.30___3.00___1.50___0.00____0.250____0.400_______3
LPL______9.0___4.5___5.00____X___1.80___0.90___9.00___4.50___0.00____0.113____0.157_______3
AC20____24.0___4.2___6.00____9___4.00___0.70___7.00___3.50___2.78____0.168____0.197_______3
SRM6_____9.6___1.6___4.00___42___2.40___0.40___4.00___2.00___0.89____0.304____0.407_______3
SRM4_____6.4___1.2___4.00___63___1.60___0.30___3.00___1.50___0.60____0.286____0.391_______3
SRM2_____3.2___0.8___4.00__125___0.80___0.20___2.00___1.00___0.30____0.242____0.348_______3
SSRM2____3.2___0.8___4.00__125___0.80___0.20___2.00___1.00___0.30____0.211____0.286_______3
LL_______8.0___4.0___5.00____X___1.60___0.80___8.00___4.00___0.00____0.123____0.178_______5
AC10____10.0___1.5___5.00___20___2.00___0.30___3.00___1.50___1.50____0.121____0.133_______5
ERLL_____9.6___7.2___6.00____X___1.60___1.20__12.00___6.00___0.00____0.094____0.145_______6
PPC_____12.0___6.0___6.00____X___2.00___1.00__10.00___5.00___0.00____0.118____0.167_______6
AC5______4.0___0.4___4.00___50___1.00___0.10___1.00___0.50___0.75____0.103____0.108_______6
LBX10___10.0___1.0___5.00___20___2.00___0.20___2.00___1.00___1.50____0.138____0.148_______6
UAC5_____4.0___0.4___2.00___50___2.00___0.20___2.00___1.00___1.50____0.160____0.174_______7
GR______24.0___0.8___8.00___10___3.00___0.10___1.00___0.50___1.88____0.168____0.173_______7
LRM20___24.0___3.6___6.00___10___4.00___0.60___6.00___3.00___2.50____0.216____0.258_______7
LRM15___18.0___3.0___6.00___14___3.00___0.50___5.00___2.50___1.79____0.218____0.266_______7
LRM10___12.0___2.4___6.00___20___2.00___0.40___4.00___2.00___1.25____0.195____0.242_______7
LRM5_____6.0___1.2___6.00___40___1.00___0.20___2.00___1.00___0.63____0.216____0.276_______7
ERPPC___16.0__12.0___8.00____X___2.00___1.50__15.00___7.50___0.00____0.091____0.138_______8
AC2______1.2___0.3___3.00__150___0.40___0.10___1.00___0.50___0.33____0.055____0.059_______8

=========

So there you go. I've just translated CBT relative weapons balance exactly into MWO while avoiding the issues mentioned (SL death machines, worthless ACs). So yes, it can be done.

Now, of course, CBT weapons balance wasn't exactly perfect (although its much better than what MWO has now), but this serves at least as a good starting point. And yes, I also have done all of the analyses for balance in CBT, and what needs to be fixed, and I can post it if challenged.

Edited by zorak ramone, 06 November 2012 - 08:27 AM.

[M4NTiC0R3X]

PGI has openly stated that hardly any of the video game versions of Mech Warrior have been canonical, and while MWO:Mercs is similar to the TT rules... can only be 'so similar' due to game balancing.

It's not our fault you can't look that info up 'n accept it for what it is.

[Viper69]

Then stop using TT terminology then.

[Purlana]

If they don't care about TT, stop balancing the weapons around TT values?

There is no reason why PPCs, and Large lasers should generate so much heat if the heat system and DHS are not going to function per TT rules.

Edited by Purlana, 06 November 2012 - 08:36 AM.