53 replies to this topic

[Famous]

Abrahms, on 03 May 2012 - 03:14 PM, said:

You havent played this game either. Hence, my intent to make a post hoping that it didnt follow the footsteps of imbalance.

If you read my post, a small laser is not better than a large laser at close range. In fact, it requires twice as many hardpoints to get the same damage out put at close range and just as many tons. It works great as a filler weapon, or for single slots (common on small mechs). Medium lasers are the better choice if the tonnage is available, and if the range is necessary, then large lasers are the better choice. My #s also were not set in stone, so if the large lasers range advantage isnt enough, increase its weight and damage by 10% (or some other #). You notice how ton for ton, you get similar DPS, but you then have hardpoints, recycle, times, etc, to balance. As it is now, the same tons in a large laser is significantly better.

If you read my post right above i addressed boating. Laser boats for sniping purposes are fine. But they should not easily defeat a mixed medium range mech at close range. MW4 that was very easy. I dont want this game to do the same thing.

I like your "defense" to intelligence involving an attack. I merely point out that there is no response to anything intellectual.... it is all "wahh wahh wahh i want my large laser boat to dominate at all ranges."

Sorry, that sucks the life out of the game, and the customization options. An AC10 MRM packing mech with a couple medium lasers in the mix should have the advantage on a long range laser boat. Now, a medium mech wont have enough tons to counter the Novacat, but a Madcat rocking the ac10s with double MRM packs and 4 medium lasers SHOULD beat the novacat at medium range. As it is, the Novacat is too good in all ranges beacus the large lasers do so much damage in the past. Its very easy to wait for the longer cooldown and just pinpoint the center torso in a couple hits.

Stats and bonuses to weapons should matter. A mech should be able to carry short range and long range weapons and not be totally gimp. Boating is too beneficial, and has left the boundaries of niche in recent games. That novacat better NEED to stay at long range. That does not mean he will lose at medium if hes a better pilot, but, as is, the novacat still has the advantage, period. Hence, everyone boats because its the only option, not a viable one.

No one is saying that the SL is better, you're saying you want it to be better. You said that, it's there in the thread.

"I guess part of the challenge is conveying a complicated concept, in writing, to people of average intelligence (and also ones with attention spans too short to read all of it?)"

AND

"Learn the concept of DPS - to do 10 dps you can fire twice for 5 damage in 10 seconds... once for 10 damage... or 10 times for 1 damage."

These comments are directed towards others posters and are (apparently) intended as insults. I, or anyone else for that matter, could report you for saying that. Since you have a low post count I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. If you continue to say anything about my intelliegence or tell me to "Learn the concept" I'll be happy to use the report feature.

Also, do not put word in my mouth. I never said that I was a proponent of laser boating, or any boating for that matter. I only pointed out that there are canon boats and one is already in the list of 'Mechs at release.

Again I am forced to assume that you don't know any better- Lasers do Damage over Time in this game, so the old style of alpha laser-ing as the ultimate load out doesn't work as well as it used to. Now you are forced to keep your lasers on target for the entire length of their firing cycle to do full damage.

Saying that you don't want the imbalances of the previous games is all well and good, but ignoring the things that we know about this game in favor of your incredibly convoluted balancing scheme, well that's just plain silly

[Insidious Johnson]

Meh, reads more like a sermon than a suggestion, but I'm voting this gets merged with one of the 1200 other balance threads in suggestions.

[Abrahms]

Famous, on 03 May 2012 - 03:37 PM, said:

Also, do not put word in my mouth. I never said that I was a proponent of laser boating, or any boating for that matter. I only pointed out that there are canon boats and one is already in the list of 'Mechs at release.

Again I am forced to assume that you don't know any better- Lasers do Damage over Time in this game, so the old style of alpha laser-ing as the ultimate load out doesn't work as well as it used to. Now you are forced to keep your lasers on target for the entire length of their firing cycle to do full damage.

Saying that you don't want the imbalances of the previous games is all well and good, but ignoring the things that we know about this game in favor of your incredibly convoluted balancing scheme, well that's just plain silly

I understand your point. I know my post was very long, so I can only assume some did not real all of it. I also was hoping that it wasnt convoluted, and I tried to use simple demonstrations to make my point.

Was merely a suggestion that speaks to weapons having niches, and for the tonnage to reflect directly on the weapons power. Having played the franchise for years, I have seen some weapons go up and down in power, but I always hated the imbalance that resulted in nothing but laser boats, etc, simply because it subtracts from the vast universe.

If you look at my laser example specifically, each version of the weapon is better than another for short/medium/long range, and all do relatively similar damage per ton. 4 small lasers dont do more damage than 1 large laser, but they recycle faster, making them better at short range (all 4 versus 1). They both take 4 tons. The small lasers, though, take 4 slots total and the large takes 2. This works great for small mechs, and filler slots, and keeps small lasers relevant to the game. Small lasers are not small arms weapons, the little blaster files carried by infantry are the small arms weapons. Small lasers are monster weapons stuck to either elementals or battlemechs (at least that is how each game portrayed it over the years).

But in each series youd end up getting a 25 ton mech with small lasers that doesnt stand a chance against a 50 ton mech, or a 75 ton mech. Of course, the small mech should be severely disadvantaged, but the fact that small lasers to such LITTLE damage was the problem. They really did too little damage for their weight.

My model resulted in per ton, small lasers being as effective as a large laser (but you require more 200% the available slots, and short range). That way, when you see that the Atlas variant you want to buy has 3 small lasers on it, you dont think "thats a waste of tons and will never be useful to any battle whatsoever."

The ideal laser was the medium laser, because it had similar slots to the large (2 medium = 1 large) but it is limited to medium range.
The other aspect of depth comes from recycle times. You can lower the damage per hit of a weapon by making is reload faster. It gives unique qualities to each weapon, and keeps each relevant. It prevents small lasers from literally falling off the radar, thereby adding more diversity and depth to the game.

The battletech books Ive read, all the games Ive played, and all the intro videos made never show small lasers hitting like a pea shooter and large lasers hitting like a volcano nuke. They are different, and unique. Each is powerful in its own right with its bonuses and drawbacks.

I merely get frustrated when the first few replies respond as if they didnt read my post. I was also misquoted several times (small lasers shouldnt be as powerful as large!) - again, there are many factors involved. But yeah, ton per ton, small lasers should do the same damage at short range, maybe slightly more DPS because of the recycle time. That still means you need 4 slots and 4 tons to = the 2 slot and 4 ton large laser. These numbers are hypothetical, and dont represent real #s, but they illustrate the point that all weapons need to be kept relevant.

[Cochise]

"Balance" means so many different things and all those things depend on the type of game it is and the type of player that plays the game.

On the Low End of the spectrum, you have "rock, paper, scissors" where everything is different but each has a weakness to be exploited that can make them equal on a one to one basis. Different but equal. This is for the casual gamer: low or little time or skill investment.

On the opposite end of the spectrum you have games that are pure asymmetric warfare. Elements vary greatly in capability and power and only through team work and heavy skill and time investment can weaker elements overcome stronger elements.

Both types are "balanced" but appeal to a totally different audience and are a totally different type of game play. I think a lot of the table top rules sometimes lean more towards the "rock, paper, scissors" type of game balancing because that lends itself to TT game play. Not saying at all that it is pure rock, paper, scissors.

I hope MWO is more asymmetric in how it is balanced and there are enough incentives and hooks to get players to use team work, strategy and planning.

I worked on a game mod years ago and if the fan base is fanatical enough and into more of a sim, then you can really have some interesting things happen that require people to work together to overcome little niggles like debating on the DPS of one weapon type vs another. I wouldn''t get hung up on details like DPS quite yet.

At the end of the day, I can have a BASP which has a ton of armor and an enormouse DPS but if I don't know how to use it properly, or understand that I can't just go out alone and cowboy it, those metrics don't add up to a hill of beans.

In other words, you may have elements in the game that just require team work to bring them down and it isn't going to happen any other way. To the solo player, this is very unbalanced. To the people that like to work in teams, this is an exciting and rewarding part of the game play that makes it all worth while.

[Pht]

There is nothing wrong with boats.

There is nothing wrong with boats.

There is nothing wrong with boats.

There is nothing wrong with boats.

There is nothing wrong with boats.

....


There IS something wrong when EVERYONE boats ALL the time.

Boating should be a perfectly viable tactic in MWO... it just shouldn't be the ONLY viable tactic in MWO.

[Rejarial Galatan]

Abrahms.... Your walls of text are irritating to read honestly. They all sound like holier than thou attacks on boating and wanting SL's to be as potent as LL. Not going to happen. Setting aside the fact this game is NOT in our hands right now, setting aside the fact that we, aside from the DEVS and those they have in F&FB right NOW, we dont know squat with how this games gonna work. Now, lets look at something here shall we?

I am by no means a tech god when it comes to lasers, but, I DO know a few things. 1. A laser pointer has no where NEAR the energy of even a laser that burns your CD's DVD's and BLU-Rays on your pc/laptop. Now, before ppl see point 1 and go ***, what does this gotta do with anything.. chill, keep reading, it will become clear, i promise. NOW, lets step this up to lasers in combat. A small Laser, lacks the lensing, the focusing potentials and the raw POWER needed to generate a beam of ANYTHING equivalent to a Large Laser.

Now, a Large Laser COULD in theory be throttled back to MATCH a SMALL Laser, but then your just wasting money on the electric bill. The fact is, IF you try to run the same amount of power a LARGE laser needs thru a SMALL Laser, your going to burn up its electronics and kill the weapon. Look. In the end, theres gonna be boats of ALL kinds. AC boats, PPC boats, LL boats, missile and so on and so forth. IF you dont like the fact this WILL happen, please, do not join us, your just gonna blow a vein or something in frustration.

[Yeach]

The argument seems to be that small weapons (small lasers and machine gunes) are useless in BT unless they are boated...
Yet the OP doesn't want them to be boated so instead suggests that they are made more powerful than they are in BT so they are more useful.

[Rejarial Galatan]

Yeach, on 03 May 2012 - 09:03 PM, said:

The argument seems to be that small weapons (small lasers and machine gunes) are useless in BT unless they are boated...
Yet the OP doesn't want them to be boated so instead suggests that they are made more powerful than they are in BT so they are more useful.

While MG's and SL's are basically useless for the most part against a HEALTHY mech, I see some good uses for them in terms of killing a mech that is in need of a mercy dispatch, ie gonna die in a second anyway lol. IF they put in things like small vehicles and npcs on the ground, i can see a MG or a SL having a good amount of use. I know of MANY times in the novels a SL came in handy along with a MG.<cough>elementals<cough>

[William Petersen]

I have not read through the whole thread, took a quick glance to see if anyone pointed out this or not, and it seems no one has...

Abrahms, on 03 May 2012 - 11:37 AM, said:

Small lasers for example NEVER can compete against large lasers, ever, not even at close range and ton for ton.

I'm sorry, but this is very, very wrong.

A LLas weights 5 tons, does 8 damage, and builds 8 heat.
A SLas weights .5 tons, does 3 damage, and builds 1 heat.

So, if you stuff in 10 SLas (the tonnage equivalent of a LLas), you get 30 damage and 10 heat. Last time I checked, 30 damage > 8 damage.

Ton-for-ton, at close range, Small Lasers kick the **** out of Large Lasers. But that's only ton-for-ton (not crit-for-crit [or HP-for-HP, obviously]), and only at close ranges.

[Sassori]

I see this all the time. Machine Guns and Small Lasers are useless against a mech. Say what?

Heavily armored mech's have 20-30 points if armor in a given location in general. A machine gun does 2 damage for 0 heat, and a small laser does 3 damage for 1 heat. Assuming you are driving something fast enough to close, they are highly efficient killers. 5 small lasers is 2.5 tons and does the same damage as a GAUSS RIFLE at close range.

It also takes up less crits. And doesn't ammo explode. You pay for that with /extremely/ limited range. DPS isn't even a factor really, it's all about the tradeoff.

At half a ton, the small laser is one of the most efficient weapons in the game, it doesn't /need/ to be altered...

You know what, I was gonna say more, but, there's no point. The OP clearly thinks he's in the right and we're all crazy for disagreeing with him. /thread.

[neodym]

I dont get why we should avoid boating,I boat setup in every MW game I played from 1998

[Rejarial Galatan]

only time you should avoid boating is if your in a 100 ton mech and try to get into that lil rubber dingy.

[Owl Cutter]

Abrahms, on 03 May 2012 - 12:43 PM, said:

[...]The inherent, or gradually increasing weight cost, heat sinks is a good way to make lasers ideal but making them lose effectiveness as you put more on. One could also always go ballistic, but then they are missing out on the fact that, at least at the start, the laser weapons weigh less for the same dps. As you pile more on though, you need to add heatsinks, which have weight factored in a way that makes them then weigh MORE than ballsistic (so, overall, at first laser weapons weight less, and later they weigh more, because of the curve for heatsinks, or the inherent heatsink + all heavy heatsink method).

People could still boat, but better players would know that a mixture is more dps per ton, and if you are good at managing didnt weapon classes, will actually come out on top. This wont prevent a noob from going all lasers and at least being effective, however, they just wont be AS effective.

I find it more intuitive to think of the free 10 heat sinks as payload space dedicated to heat sinks.  If you use it all up, it's the same "free" tonnage whether you're using it for cool weapons or hot ones; the only way cool weapons are any less efficient is if you don't use all of that cooling capacity.  The differently scaling costs are in crit space vs. tonnage, IMO, but more importantly I think such multiple-resource mechanics should not be what compels us to use a variety of types. (whether a variety of boats, or a single 'mech with mixed weapons)

I want to feel carrot-pulled to invest in several different systems because they all offer different benefits and synergise in various ways, like AC/20 to open holes and SRMs to exploit them, or either of those to cover the minimum range of a PPC and/or LRM battery, as opposed to just stick-pushed by needing to mix weapons that are hard to use together in order to cram as much firepower as possible into a chassis.

Edited by Owl Cutter, 04 May 2012 - 01:48 AM.

[pursang]

Someone should phone up Awesome and tell him to stop boating, that as-----

Edited by pursang, 04 May 2012 - 01:58 AM.

[LackofCertainty]

A lot of good responses in this thread to what appears to be a rather deluded OP. No offense meant, Abrahms, you're just trying to mathematically justify something that doesn't make sense when you look at the numbers.

Your first post seems like a four page essay trying to make things work the way they already do... I just don't really understand what you're after.

Different weapons have different characteristics. You seem to dislike small lasers because of their lack of range. Okay, so use an AC2 instead. It weighs a little more, sure, but it has insane range. You can easily outrange even the LL's that you're worried about. In the meantime Small lasers serve the role of being nice damage boosters on a brawler mech. If you are fighting in close quarters, the small laser is one of the most efficient weapons in the game.

The most frustrating part about your post is that you're asking the devs to do what has already been done:

Abrahms, on 03 May 2012 - 11:37 AM, said:

a) balancing the damage: To make it so that large is not >>>> small, I would lay small, medium, and large down onto a spreadsheet and give them all the same tonnage, and all the same damage. I would then, for example, say that I want a medium laser to weigh 1/2 of a large laser for example, and then for a small to weight 1/2 of that (can use any proportion, just making an example).
The next step is to then change the weight accordingly. So, the large laser weights 4 tons, and does 10 damage, and the medium laser weight 2 tons and does 5 damage (small laser weighs 1 ton and does 2.5 damage). Now, slot wise the small and medium both take up 1 slot (think back to mechwarrior 4) and the large takes 2 (can come up with other variations as well to find better balance, but below I will illustrate based on these %s).

Tabletop values already do this. Your suggestions are -exactly- how balance already works in the Battletech TT. Your numbers are different, but otherwise it already is setup that way. I hope you can see that.

Watch me make my table:

Lets start with your base values:

LL: 4 tons, 10 damage, 8 heat. 3/6/9 range
ML: 2 tons. 5 damage. 4 heat. 3/6/9 range
SL: 1 ton. 2.5 damage. 2 heat. 3/6/9 range

Okay, now, let's give the big guy a 6 more max range, but make him heavier and less damaging to compensate.


LL: 5 tons, 8 damage, 8 heat. 5/10/15 range
ML: 2 tons. 5 damage. 4 heat. 3/6/9 range
SL: 1 ton. 2.5 damage. 2 heat. 3/6/9 range

Now let's give the little guy 6 less max range, but we'll compensate by giving it less weight, less heat, and more damage!


LL: 5 tons, 8 damage, 8 heat. 5/10/15 range
ML: 2 tons. 5 damage. 4 heat. 3/6/9 range
SL: 0.5 ton. 3 damage. 1 heat. 1/2/3 range

Well, now we're pretty close, but we haven't given the ML any love. Let's tweak it's Heat and weight down slightly to put it more in line with the progression curve we have between SL and LL.


LL: 5 tons, 8 damage, 8 heat. 5/10/15 range
ML: 1 tons. 5 damage. 3 heat. 3/6/9 range
SL: 0.5 ton. 3 damage. 1 heat. 1/2/3 range

Congratulations, you've now discovered how to make a "revolutionary new system" that is exactly what was done to make the current Battletech balance.

The main reason why LL and ML boating was popular in former MW games is because heat wasn't properly punishing. One of the biggest downsides to LL's and ML's is their damage to heat ratios. Thus, they became stronger. SL's are the most heat efficient laser, so they didn't benefit nearly as much from the problem. (thus why SL's were underused in other MW games)

The devs don't need to change all the numbers on Lasers to balance them. All they need to do is model heat properly.

Edited by LackofCertainty, 04 May 2012 - 03:36 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

the problem is that there won't be 3/6/9 ranges in realtime. Or did the devs mentioned something like less damage per range band?
light laser deal 2 damage at ranges beyond 45m and at ranges beyond 90m only a fractional account of damage.


the other problem - linked laser...when 20 light laser with a total heat of 20 hit the same location they may deal 60 damage....enough to penetrate almost every battlemech armor. Considering that they will do this only at ranges less then 90m - a range you can ignore in real time

[LackofCertainty]

Karl Streiger, on 04 May 2012 - 03:36 AM, said:

the problem is that there won't be 3/6/9 ranges in realtime. Or did the devs mentioned something like less damage per range band?
light laser deal 2 damage at ranges beyond 45m and at ranges beyond 90m only a fractional account of damage.


the other problem - linked laser...when 20 light laser with a total heat of 20 hit the same location they may deal 60 damage....enough to penetrate almost every battlemech armor. Considering that they will do this only at ranges less then 90m - a range you can ignore in real time

A. Weapon convergence helps fix the problem of "all my stuff hits 1 spot" Weapon convergence is in the game, so insta-coring a mech shouldn't be an issue.

B.
http://www.youtube.c...d&v=rkGvP8VFXAI

Yeah you're right. The gameplay vid -totally- doesn't show any close quarters combat. /sarcasm


edit: I is a nub who can't do tags apparently.

Edit2: It does seem like the small lasers are extending out past 90m in that vid. (so I'd expect they gave them damage fall-off past 90m instead of strict "this stops existing past 90m")

Edited by LackofCertainty, 04 May 2012 - 03:53 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

You got me wrong...the limited range of TT can't be transfered into a real time game without increasing it.
The difference in range between a light and medium laser is a major factor in TT games. I can hit a target with higher chance at 90 m when using a medium laser...i don't expect that it would be a hard thing to target a enemy mech with your light laser in MWO..
So the only factor is the total range and the maybe the a decreasing damage at longer ranges.

[Ghosth]

An awful lot of this concern I think comes down to "Style" and your choice of how to play. Nothing wrong with being a sniper if that is what you like. But there is nothing wrong with putting 14 er med lasers on a summoner and dealing death to anyone silly enough to get inside your range either. (recently reloaded MW4 just so I can remember better what did what)

Style! No one mech, or style is going to win them all, diversity brings balance if you look at the big enough picture.

Last, let the community decide the penalty's. Yes, you guys, young vibrant barely awake and alive, but with a world of experience.

What happens in a 4 vs 4 if 3 guys pull back and leave someone fighting 4 on 1?

Community can be very very powerful if you give it a chance.

So while your debating all this keep in mind HOW we want "THIS" community to grow.

[Erwiin]

What if, what if, what if...

How about we just 'wait and see...'