74 replies to this topic

[Sadato]

StainlessSR, on 19 November 2012 - 09:10 AM, said:

the engine takes damage and can be destroyed from crits thus "coring" the mech. Yes engine crits are in just like any other item can take crit damage.

Well as we have several conflicting statements on the issue of engine crits, I've added a note to my original post which states there is no official confirmation on this.

StainlessSR, on 19 November 2012 - 09:10 AM, said:

As to the OP.

This would be a nice idea, it would as you stated reduce the "alpha" damage while lowering heat to allow longer firing before overheat. Lowering the laser damage/heat would also allow AC's to be a more viable choice (more one hit damage than a laser [this does not take into account heat generation of AC verses laser]). This would not be so much of a nerf as a balancing, you are losing some damage but gaining longer firing time till overheat. The only change would be to lengthen the time it takes to kill a mech with lasers.

This is pretty much the case, and as PGI have already nerfed the small and medium lasers, all I would like is for that nerf to affect a different attribute.

Odanan, on 19 November 2012 - 09:12 AM, said:

I liked the solution... I don't know if it helps mechs with big energy weapons tough.

I think the devs should keep the much closer to the TT values as it is possible. The rate of heat dissipation should be increased (allowing the use of stock mechs) and DHS should dissipate 2.0 full. Currently, heat is an issue in every (non-Gaussapult) mech - that's too much.

And double armor = double ammo. Period.

- Gauss = looks like the weapon was balanced recently (by increasing the fire delay). It's not the king of brawling any more.
- Autocannons = still need some love. They should have no fire delay at all and a very high projectile speed (and maybe improved ROF).
- SRMs = should have minimal guidance (not necessary locking). Because you can't hit anything past 100 meters.
- SSRMs = are fine. (but AMS should have some chance to shoot down some SRMs and SSRMs)
- PPCs and ER PPCs = need major improvements.
- LRMs = should travel much faster and have slow ROF (to save ammo). Currently, it's too easy to find cover against incoming missiles.
- Small and Medium Lasers / Pulse Lasers = instead of just increasing the heat, I liked your suggestion of decreasing the damage.
- Large, Pulse and ER Large Lasers = almost balanced.
- Machineguns = need to do more damage.
- Flamers = need to make more heat.

Actually, I'm probably one of the few people who thinks that heat dissipation for SHS is ok. DHS needs to be back at 0.2.

I've run some spreadsheets with increased dissipation rates, and it does some weird things for balance.

The main issue I see with the game is that the heat threshold is set way too high and actively encourages these Alpha Strike builds.

If damage and heat generation were reduced across the board whilst lowering the max heat threshold, the pace of the game would even out a lot more.

It would also reward good heat management, and although overall heat will be easier to manange it would increase the skill cap further by making it more difficult to discern whether that final shot will overheat you.

Currently, heat levels are difficult to manage for beginners, but easy to master.

MCXL, on 19 November 2012 - 09:58 AM, said:

Beep boop, read my thread.

Yes, excellent thread!

[Tickdoff Tank]

Kousagi, on 19 November 2012 - 07:26 AM, said:

Crits do not do extra damage... Crits only damage internal stuff. So no, 2 shots will never core a atlas, crits or not. With 6 med pulses, you need 4 shots to kill a stock atlas through its rear CT.

This is wrong. Crits do 2X or 3X damage, and internals have 10hp (I am pretty sure it is only 10hp). This is why the MG and LBX10 are poor crit seeking weapons. They will get more critical hits, but for the MG each critical hit is 0.04 damage base and the LBX10 has 10 chances for a crit, but each crit will only do 2 or 3 damage (still much better than the MG though)

http://mwomercs.com/...chanics-sought/

rolly, on 16 November 2012 - 04:16 PM, said:

Magius was able to help clarify this when I sent in a ticket. Here is what he had to say

Quote

Currently a kill is awarded for a destroyed engine, destroyed cockpit or both legs destroyed. As XL engines span the entire torso, a side torso destroyed can be a kill shot.
Overheating too often or overriding the overheat shutdown can cause damage to internals, cause ammunition explosions or weapon detonations.
We are currently not using the TT rules regarding heat and internal hits. We do have critical hits in the game currently. If a shot hits internals then they have a chance of causing a critical hit which can cause 1, 2 or 3 times the weapon damage. This damage can also "bleed" to adjacent internals if the section is destroyed (ie: crit to side torso, side torso destroyed, remainder of damage transfers at 50% to Center torso). We are using the TT rules as a base but are not sticking to them religiously.

Thank you Magius for taking the time to explain it.

[Sadato]

Tickdoff Tank, on 19 November 2012 - 10:58 AM, said:

This is wrong. Crits do 2X or 3X damage, and internals have 10hp (I am pretty sure it is only 10hp). This is why the MG and LBX10 are poor crit seeking weapons. They will get more critical hits, but for the MG each critical hit is 0.04 damage base and the LBX10 has 10 chances for a crit, but each crit will only do 2 or 3 damage (still much better than the MG though)

http://mwomercs.com/...chanics-sought/

Interesting reply from Magius, but it doesn't clearly state whether the damage is dealt to the internal structure or the engine itself.

Hopefully we can get some more clarification.

[Kousagi]

Tickdoff Tank, on 19 November 2012 - 10:58 AM, said:

This is wrong. Crits do 2X or 3X damage, and internals have 10hp (I am pretty sure it is only 10hp). This is why the MG and LBX10 are poor crit seeking weapons. They will get more critical hits, but for the MG each critical hit is 0.04 damage base and the LBX10 has 10 chances for a crit, but each crit will only do 2 or 3 damage (still much better than the MG though)

http://mwomercs.com/...chanics-sought/

Can i point out the irony that you just said what i said... Crits do not do extra damage to the mech's armor/structure. They do how ever do damage to internal equipment. Meaning, weapons, engines, ammo. Yes, the damage they do to that stuff is 2x/3x and so on, but thats a balancing thing they are doing with weapons. As TT rules are, 1 crit kills any crit slot it hits.

People are misunderstanding critical hits in mechwarrior. Its hits on critical slots, not more damage.

[Asatruer]

Kurayami, on 19 November 2012 - 06:49 AM, said:

the reason behind dhs nerf is prevention of heat neutral laser mech builds\extensive boating. i don't see any problems with that.

Sadato, on 19 November 2012 - 07:13 AM, said:

Exactly, but the DHS are not the problem with laserboating, the problem is that the lasers themselves deal too much damage so PGI nerfed them.

My argument is that they balanced the wrong stat by increasing heat when the damage should have been addressed.

Sayyid, on 19 November 2012 - 06:02 AM, said:

Its not the weapons, its the players. If you play like a lone wolf then you will die a lone wolf.

While I agree that the lack of teamwork and the prevelance of the lone wolf mentality can lead to assaults being eaten alive by lights, the main issue being discussed in this thread (the overpoweredness of boating of small and medium lasers) is not caused by the lack of team work, but you are correct in that it is not caused by the weapons either. The actual problem with boating 4 MLs over 1 AC/20 is not an issue of how much damage, or heat, or heatsinks, is the following

Sayyid, on 19 November 2012 - 05:39 AM, said:

The TT a Jenner if it gets behind an AS7-D can destroy it in a couple of turns. Oddly enough the same number of volleys as in MWO. A stock JR7-D does 20pts of damage from its lasers alone and an additional 8 from the SRM. The rear armor on an AS7 is less than that. Granted the damage is often spread out by the hit charts, but if you were to remove that or have all the weapons hit in one area you would run into the issue you have now in MWO.

There it is, the elephant in the room that does not get enough attention in these discussions. The reason 4MLs are better than 1 AC/20 in MWO, is because of the weapon convergence causing the laser boating 4MLs to do 20 points of damage in a much more tightly focused way in MWO than they would do in TT, where the same 20 damage is done in chunks of five to four locations. This is the root cause of the problem, it was not that heat "neutrality" was bad, it is not that mechs have too many energy Hardpoints, and it is not that some weapons do too much damage for their heat and tons, those are all symptoms.

MustrumRidcully, on 19 November 2012 - 09:36 AM, said:

You could still use the TT values as a basis, if you'd like to, and simply try to estimate how much they calculated the weapon range was worth, undo the effect of that manipulation, and instead apply your own range effect.

For example, you could either make a weapon like the LL deal 50 % more damage, or you could make the Medium Laser deal 50 % less damage - if you figure that the LL was 50 % less effiicent than the ML in the table top because that's how good the range advantage was.

After the imbalance issues caused by convergence, I think the changes to the effect range has on weapons and the effective range of weapons causes most of the rest of damage to weapon balance. Rather than trying to tweak individual weapon damages to try and account for this, something like simply dropping effective range from being based on TT long range to short range, and if that is too punitive, go for medium range.

[MustrumRidcully]

I thin as long as we have convergence, we cannot really alter range much and hope we improve the effect. We need to alter other weapon stats. If the current pace of combat seems okay to us - I'd suggest generally lowering weapon damage the lower the weapon's range was in the TT. THe exact change would need some analysis or testing to figure out.

Not all weapons need to be equally affected. The AC20 deals the same damage as 4 Medium Lasers - at considerably more weight and the same range. It doesn't need a damage nerf anymore, or any other change. It got to its weight in the table top because dealing 20 points of damage to one hit location was really impressive and not something 4 MLs could replicate, barring extreme luck.

[MWHawke]

John Norad, on 19 November 2012 - 09:49 AM, said:

Yes and no.

Yes, of course you need to make changes if you translate a TT game to a realtime computer game. First and foremost because random dice rolls are replaced with player controlled input. In MWO's case you get pinpoint accuracy (which is a bad thing imho), making aimed burst damage and sniper shots much more of a balancing issue.

The game caters for Piloting and Gunnery skill. Pin point accuracy translated to realtime is better gunnery skill right? And for those people who stand still and just mash the fire button, they rank lower in piloting skill and deserve to suffer from sharpshooters right? How is that bad?

[Teirdome]

Sadato, on 19 November 2012 - 04:56 AM, said:

DHS being nerfed still hurts heavies and assaults more than it does lights and mediums, so it's best to leave them at full capacity to level the playing field.

I'm not sure I understand the logic here. Inner Sphere DHS's have always been about a trade of tonnage for critical space. Assault's generally have an excess of tonnage while lights and mediums generally have an excess of critical space. It would follow that the classes that can get more of a benefit from DHS (lights/mediums) are being more impacted by the 1.4 dissipation.

As for your proposed numbers, I would have to run the math myself. I feel that because of the duration mechanic Lasers in general are very well balanced currently. It is very rare that a laser fired, especially from a small mech, is going to do the full duration of damage. The heat management aspect of them is more difficult for newer players, but you trade that for not having to manage ammo and deal with ammo 'splode.

Edited by Teirdome, 19 November 2012 - 05:42 PM.

[Tickdoff Tank]

Kousagi, on 19 November 2012 - 11:52 AM, said:

Can i point out the irony that you just said what i said... Crits do not do extra damage to the mech's armor/structure. They do how ever do damage to internal equipment. Meaning, weapons, engines, ammo. Yes, the damage they do to that stuff is 2x/3x and so on, but thats a balancing thing they are doing with weapons. As TT rules are, 1 crit kills any crit slot it hits.

People are misunderstanding critical hits in mechwarrior. Its hits on critical slots, not more damage.

It is still more damage to the internal items. It does not do additional damage to armor. I find that the way you are trying to explain the critical hits is making it harder for people to understand, (as I mis-understood your post myself).

More clarification: this time from Viterbi:

Viterbi, on 19 November 2012 - 11:46 AM, said:

In the meantime, from the September 4, 2012 patch notes:

Quote

Critical Hit System:

• Whenever a location on a BattleMech takes damage to its internal structure, there is a chance that the damage will cause a critical hit
  
• When a critical hit occurs, depending on its severity, 1x, 2x, or 3x the damage dealt by the attack is also dealt to equipment located in that part of the BattleMech
  
• When a piece of equipment is reduced to zero hit points, it is destroyed an no longer functions
  
• This system is a work in progress and, as such, currently has little UI/user feedback support, though you will see destroyed weapons marked as such on your weapon readout
  
• Additionally, many items currently have no effect on gameplay when destroyed

Mainly posting the response from Viterbi becasue it is the only "official" response that I have.

Edited by Tickdoff Tank, 19 November 2012 - 04:36 PM.

[BlackSquirrel]

Always thought medium lasers did a tad too much damage or perhaps it's that other lasers just had lack of benefit. Given our map options though, and how the film grain, and environment work larger weapons benefit (Range) doesnt really make them shine.

[Yeach]

In regards to damage/recycle I always go back to that they should have went with the mechcommander style;
that way they would not have had to double armor.

ML 2.5 damage / 5 seconds = 5 TT damage (per 10 sec)
PPC 7.5 damage / 7.5 seconds = 10 TT damage (per 10 sec)
AC10 5 damage / 5 seconds = 10 TT damage (per 10 sec)
Gauss 7.5 damage / 5 seconds = 15 TT damage (per 10 sec)
AC20 15 damage / 7.5 seconds = 20 TT damage (per 10 sec)
etc

http://mwomercs.com/...888#entry100888

[MustrumRidcully]

Yeach, on 19 November 2012 - 07:34 PM, said:

In regards to damage/recycle I always go back to that they should have went with the mechcommander style;
that way they would not have had to double armor.

ML 2.5 damage / 5 seconds = 5 TT damage (per 10 sec)
PPC 7.5 damage / 7.5 seconds = 10 TT damage (per 10 sec)
AC10 5 damage / 5 seconds = 10 TT damage (per 10 sec)
Gauss 7.5 damage / 5 seconds = 15 TT damage (per 10 sec)
AC20 15 damage / 7.5 seconds = 20 TT damage (per 10 sec)
etc

http://mwomercs.com/...888#entry100888

You're telling me the Mech Commander guys understood math?

[Nothing Whatsoever]

I have a question, could increasing the crit space of the Lasers help? I haven't tried a HBK-4P or the JR7-F yet, but could increasing the slots used force pilots to tweak their builds without affecting Trial mechs?

Where a Small Laser maybe could take two slots, an ML could take two or three and the MPL would stay at two or go to three also?

[Dwigo]

Doesnt Atlas have more than 28 CT rear armor? Even my Awesome has 40. And yes, what was the point of making weapons fire faster, then doubling all armor and leaving everything else the same?

[shabowie]

Sadato, on 19 November 2012 - 04:56 AM, said:

Garth's Jenner doesn't seem so implausible now does it?

So, one Atlas cored in 4.5 seconds means nerf Double Heat Sinks or Medium Pulse Lasers right?

It's still a horrible excuse not to have true DHS for the following reasons:

1. Even in the example you show we still don't have an Atlas cored in 3 seconds. It was hyperbole.

2. A Jenner down engined to fit 6 mpls is easy meat for other lights and LRM shooters. It's a one trick pony.

3. If the Jenner had 10 true DHS and 6 mpl my understanding of the mechanics would have him shutting down on the second alpha.

4. No player should expect to survive 3 alpha strikes to the rear torso, in any mech. In any real environment the targeted mech reacts and moves or dies as they deserve to for being oblivious. A non reactive target doesn't make a good metric for a balance discussion.


But your ideas on tweaking things were interesting, and I appreciate your post.

I personally think the solution to reducing high alpha problems that may arise with the vey much needed higher heat dissipation is to reduce the capacity of the mech to carry waste heat. The 30 excess heat table from TT is a good example where sinks only help dissipate heat, not help you store it. Have heat build up over some time after firing, an idea put out by several posters before, and then rebalance single heat sinks to make stock mechs including those with ER PPCs playable. Then make DHS truly double to allow even more firing or fewer heat sinks to be carried. Neither SHS nor DHS would allow the storing of more heat, only provide dissipation. Then provide canon heat consequences for where a mech is on the scale. Reduced movement speed, Slow torso twist and arm movement, make weapons randomly diverge from firing reticle. Chances of ammo cook off or catastrophic systems failures. Not just auto shutdown at 100% heat scale (which is 50 or more in most mechs rather than 30) as we have now.

Edited by shabowie, 24 November 2012 - 06:24 PM.