187 replies to this topic

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Thank you Bryan, this has been a wonderful post, and it's great to see you engaging the community in a positive way again.

I know it's tough on you guys, and we[the community] know you're working hard day in and out to give us all a great experience. And for the most part you guys are doing a great job, but something that seems like it's low priority... like Detailed patch notes for instance, is one of those things that, I mean, look at most other company's man. Look at how detailed patch notes are for WoW or Guild Wars... We need detailed patch notes... EVEN IF THERE'S STUFF CHANGING DOWN THE LINE! In fact, especially because things are changing down the line.

Believe it or not, your players will be better testers with detailed notes, because then we can go "oh, DHS outside the engines cool better now, ok, let's see just what we can do with that." or "I love medium lasers... and they changed the sound, well let's see."

That was a big one for me, not even a single mention of a change in the sound for Medium Lasers? And it's a HUGE sound change, yet not a single mention in the patch notes?

[hiphopguy0]

Well, if we want to get technical a gauss rifle is just a means of further accelerating a projectile. It still needs some explosive force to get it started...then inductive forces really accelerate it. The gauss rifle is easily mistaken with a rail gun.
just some off topic banter...or stealth douchbaggery.

[Moorecroft]

David Bradley, on 22 November 2012 - 04:27 PM, said:

Could you elaborate as to what you mean by this? The greatest benefit with regards to DHS comes from having a large engine, for both the 2x engine heat sinks as well as fitting extra 1.4x heat sinks inside.

Also, I want to reiterate what Bryan said earlier, that we'll be keeping an eye on how DHSs perform, and be ready to tune the values as needed.

Hi! This is one of several reasons the Jenner is objectively better than the Raven at the moment. Bigger engine means not only faster/more survivable, but also more 2.0 heatsinks, and more efficient use of engine weight for heatsinks. In a 35 ton mech, those are pretty significant alone. Not to mention the jumpjets, or the stupid side-torso hitbox on the raven that always gets my XL blown out. It needs to be a little smaller, but anyway.

I know you're still tweaking heaps of stuff, and I know that there are still some electronics out there that are yet to be implemented etc... I'm excited about them, but I don't think ECM is going to be enough to make the raven as competitive as the jenner.

I have four ideas for what might help:

1. 360 torso twist on the raven. Or at least as far as the catapult. Something like that.

2. Raven side-torso hit box smaller.

3. +1 missile slot on maybe the 3L and 2X (Allowing a loadout that the jenner can't just be better at)

4. 2x AMS slots on a couple of the variants.

Obviously I would not expect all of them, and my preference would be in the same order as posted, but any one of those things would make me a happy Raven pilot.

Also if you can fix THE ENTIRE INTERNET that would be great, because I'd love to use a UAC5 on a raven, but it's just so damn hard to hit the stuff I'll end up targetting. =P

Thanks!

Edited by Moorecroft, 22 November 2012 - 05:20 PM.

[Tickdoff Tank]

Deleted my previous post. As I was writing it (and working on some pumpkin pie) our friendly neighborhood devs stopped by and began answering our questions, and the questions and comments I had were handled before I finished my post

Edited by Tickdoff Tank, 22 November 2012 - 05:12 PM.

[Squid von Torgar]

Quote

Could you elaborate as to what you mean by this? The greatest benefit with regards to DHS comes from having a large engine, for both the 2x engine heat sinks as well as fitting extra 1.4x heat sinks inside.

Also, I want to reiterate what Bryan said earlier, that we'll be keeping an eye on how DHSs perform, and be ready to tune the values as needed.

I will elaborate, if I may be so bold.

You have a Jenner,lets say for example it opts for DHS.

It can fit these in the engine. It gets the full 2.0 boost.

Now I have an Atlas. Lets say it can also fit 10 in the Engine. It gets the same boost as the jenner but needs more as it carries more weapons. However the few external DHS it can fit are limited and it receives a lesser boost as these are working at 1.4.

Cut a long story short, the mechs that rely on only engine DHS get more of a benefit per ton than those that require external. Traditionally this means that the ligher mechs gain more over the heavier ones.

Edited by Squid von Torgar, 22 November 2012 - 05:20 PM.

[Tickdoff Tank]

I recieved a reply from Viterbi about critical hits. While most of what he said fits nicely with your response, it does make me wonder about the X2 or X3 damage that Viterbi mentioned. How does that work?

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

Quote

2) Each time the internal structure of a Mech takes damage, there is a chance that the hit will cause at least 1 critical hit. There is a 25% chance of causing 1 critical hit, a 14% chance of causing 2 critical hits, and a 3% chance of causing 3 critical hits (for a total of a 42% chance of any sort of critical hit). Each critical hit will randomly hit a weapon or piece of equipment in that location; the chance of a particular piece of equipment being hit is proportional to how many critical slots it occupies. Each critical hit damages the weapon/equipment an amount equal to the damage that caused the critical hit.

For example, an Atlas AS7-D is hit with an AC/5, for 5 damage to its left torso’s internal structure. The attacker gets lucky and this results in 3 critical hits. Two of the crits hit the LRM 20 and 1 hits the heat sink. The heat sink will take 5 damage and the LRM 20 will take 10 (5 x 2 = 10).

Currently, all engines have 15 points of health while all other items have 10. One of the changes going through QA right now, and that will be applied to an upcoming patch, is lowering the health of the Gauss rifle to 3 points. And, sometime soon, we plan on doing a full pass on the health of all the items.

Critical damage to the side torso hit boxes of XL engines deals damage to the engine as a whole. However, it should be noted that, currently, critical damage to your engine will not disable it, but simply add to your repair bill. This is likely to change when we do the pass on the health values.

Where does the damage multiplier fit in?

[SteelPaladin]

Tickdoff Tank, on 22 November 2012 - 05:22 PM, said:

I recieved a reply from Viterbi about critical hits. While most of what he said fits nicely with your response, it does make me wonder about the X2 or X3 damage that Viterbi mentioned. How does that work?

Where does the damage multiplier fit in?

"x2 or x3 damage" is the chance to crit multiple times. It was worded badly in the initial patch notes. In the Atlas example you quoted, the crit does "x3 damage" because it hit 3 times. 5 damage to the heat sink plus 10 damage to the LRM20 equals 15 damage total, which is 3 times the damage of the hit that caused the crit (5 damage from an AC/5 round).

[Vermaxx]

Bryan and David, thank you for the confirmation of some things. Now I can tell these crazy "bank fire makes more heat than chain fire!" people to go back under their bridges.

I would just like to throw this out there, based on your Atlas example:

A x3 crit should blow up (off) the ENTIRE section that suffered three crits. A left torso taking three crits should blow out the torso and sever the arm.

I would also like to point out that with doubled armor and increased internal, a gauss really should have a larger explosion than 20 damage. 20 damage meant something in tabletop, it means less here. The gauss needs a bigger "oops" factor to balance out its obscene heat efficiency, particularly since DHS aren't going to be truly "double."

[David Bradley]

Thanks you for your responses guys. I assumed it was something along those lines, but just wanted to be sure. In any case, the numbers for double heat sinks are something that we will very likely be looking over once again.

Also, I just realized that I forgot to include something in my answer regarding how crit hits work. Weapons that deal damage over time, like lasers, work by quickly dealing tiny amounts of damage repeatedly over the lifetime of the laser beam. I think the medium laser does something like 0.20 - 0.25 damage repeatedly until it does the full 5 damage. Each of those micro damage hits have their own chance to crit. This means that lasers will have many chances to crit, but the crits will be spread out amongst the equipment in the location, and do little damage each time. Meanwhile an autocannon will have only one chance to crit per shot, but do all its damage to one piece of equipment (or applied multiple times if you get a double or triple crit).

[shabowie]

David Bradley, on 22 November 2012 - 06:05 PM, said:

Thanks you for your responses guys. I assumed it was something along those lines, but just wanted to be sure. In any case, the numbers for double heat sinks are something that we will very likely be looking over once again.

Many of us are hoping we can see true 2.0 double heat sinks across the board. The current system is seeing more large laser use, but PPCs are still relatively uncommon.

It's only once a very large number of external DHS are mounted that the bump from 1.4 to 2.0 DHS would be a significant percentage increase in heat dissipated per second.

Edited by shabowie, 22 November 2012 - 06:36 PM.

[SkyCake]

here here

ninja nerfs are just dispicable, plain and simple

Edited by SkyCake, 22 November 2012 - 06:14 PM.

[Laokin]

Gristle, on 22 November 2012 - 12:54 PM, said:

I agree - Especially item 2.

I don't think critical hits are "critical hits" at all. I think critical hits are when a hit puts a section into critical damage levels.

I think a hit that puts you in critical damage levels has a chance to explode volatile ammunition stored in that section, which then completely blows that section off.

So say you have armor on your arm, you take a hit to the arm, the armor is gone and you're left with a yellow arm. In your arm, you have LRM missile ammo. The next hit to that arm, if it's enough damage to make your arm red, would then explode the LRM missile ammo in that arm, and instead of your arm becoming red, it blows it off completely which does damage to adjacent sections of your mech as well.

So, for instance, if you're running an XL engine and your side torso is red, and the above scenario happens to your arm -- you die from a "Critical Hit."

It's not "Random" dice rolls like RPG criticals, with a critical damage modifier.

If it is, this game could never be competitive. Random damage doesn't translate to competition very well at all.

I haven't noticed anything random. Some people distribute armor differently than others, so a gauss hit to the chest of an players "x's" Atlas may not do the same amount of damage as it would to the chest of player "y's" Atlas.

But only because x has more armor on his torso than player y did.

I've also died by losing my arm in my Catapult K2. Next game I took my munitions out of my arm and that hasn't happened since. So I'm pretty sure a hit that makes a section red with no armor that hold munitions explodes the munitions resulting in what is referred to as a critical hit.

No munitions and all energy weapons I think are immune to critical hits. For every ammo box you have, you need 1 case in the same section to make it critical hit neutral.

Cases remove the ammunition explosion completely as far as I can tell. This makes it a little tough, since if you want to be crit neutral with ballistic/missile loadouts, you have to drop some Ammo/HS/Armor to add cases, and in some builds that's not really viable, making some builds riskier than others to run.

Again this is all what I gather from player experience. I've shot people in the arm and watched them explode, but that's never happened vs a target with an all energy build to me before.

I believe AC/Gauss/SRM/SSRM/LRM munitions are all volatile. MG could be too, but I doubt it since they are basically like BB's in this game.

*EDIT*

Should have read the thread, Random chance to critically hit is stupid.

So, basically, what he said is if you crit one time [25% chance] you do double damage, if you crit 2x [14% chance] you triple your damage if you crit 3x [3% chance] you do quad damage. Double and Triple crits being reserved specifically for Regular Lasers, pulse omitted.


He said each crit does equal damage to the hit that caused the crit. So if you critically hit with 2 gauss rifles at the same time with both of them, you are doing 60 damage per alpha.

1 in 8 shot's with dual Gauss is doing 60 damage according to his explanation. [This is a probability, you could go 100 shots in a row and not get a dual crit, but probability is 1 in 8 that hit.]

This is just beyond silly.

This crit system should be removed. It's unfair for repairs, it's unfair to have a guy get lucky on a dice roll and kill you in one alpha, it's unfair plain and simple.

It should be how I outlined above. The whole case system is silly too, because his explanation doesn't match the tool tip at all.

Also, if the case system in the side torso doesn't work with XL engines, and they know this since they made it this way, then why did they put cases in the side torso's of Trial's with XL engines? He even said it's useless right now, so -- why on earth would they make them this way to begin with? [The trials with XL's and Cases in the Side torso's, specifically.]

Edited by Laokin, 22 November 2012 - 07:19 PM.

[Khavi Vetali]

Laokin, you need to read the entire thread. Your take on critical hits is entirely wrong. They are implemented very similar to the core rules in Battletech.

Edit: Laokin, you do realize that critical hits do not start to occur until after all the armor is gone from a location, and damage is being done to the internal structure of a mech? You cannot crit through armor. Barring cockpit shots with dual AC20's or extremely precise alpha strikes also on cockpits, there is no such thing as getting lucky, and killing an undamaged mech with one volley.

Also, your interpretation of the critical hit rules is incorrect. When you strike the internal structure of a mech, you have a chance to hit something stored in that section (let's just drop "critical" from this, because its not bonus damage). You have a 25% chance to hit one critical slot, a 14% chance to hit two critical slots, etc. When you hit a critical slot, you do weapon damage to whatever is stored in that location, be it an engine, a weapon, a heat sink. Each item has it's own item HP, which denotes how much damage it can take. You will never "get lucky" and do 90 damage with a gauss rifle. You may, after striping the armor off of a center torso, or side torso with XL, hit the internal structure and strike the critical location for an engine with enough damage to destroy the engine and kill the mech.

Every weapon has a chance to hit a critical location in a mech when you strike the internal structure. Lasers, as described, just have multiple chances over the length of the beam to damage internals, albiet with only a portion of the total beam damage.

Everything that you have an issue with originated in the tabletop rules for Battletech. The stated aim of the developers is to make a mechwarrior game that uses the original core rules of Battletech as a starting point. If something is broken, or does not translate properly to a real time game, they may tweak it, such as what happened with double armor or adjusted weapon stats. I disagree with you, but if you bring a viable enough point to the table, the devs may listen to you. They have added and changed many things based on tester feedback in the past.

Edited by Khavi Vetali, 22 November 2012 - 07:58 PM.

[Laokin]

I did read it. He said specifically, that if you hit an arm with a guass rifle you'll do 15 damage, but you have a 25% chance to crit, which will then hit the internals of that arm [Hitting the object occupying the most slots in that section] for an additional 15 damage. This is almost always going to be the weapon.

Lets talk about how it's going to be when the gauss rifle explosion is "fixed."

Lets say, I have a Gauss Rifle in my torso. Lets say, it's damaged already.

Now say I get hit by a Guass rifle in my torso, and it crits. I'm going to take 15 damage to my torso which houses my gauss rifle, which is getting hit itself for 15 more damage [totaling 30] which causes it to explode for an additional 20 damage. That's 50 damage from ONE gauss shot because of some stupid 25% chance to randomly crit? The Gauss rifle is the biggest thing you can slot in the torso on a K2. Every crit is going to hit the Rifle that will explode for a bonus 20 damage. Lets say now, he was a true blue gausscat, and crit with the dual shot.

15+15[to my rifle]+15+15[to my rifle]+20[from my rifle exploding]=80 damage in one strike. I'm basically dead, one shot to the torso.

All because my opponent got LUCKY with a random dice roll to crit with both rifles, skill removed from the equation, pure luck.

Battletech is a turn based, dice roll, table top game.

MWO is a REAL TIME, SKILL BASED, SIMULATOR, with an AIM to be competitive.

Random Dice rolls for bonus damage have NO place here. It leads to random unexplainable things where a battle can be turned by luck and not skill, in an otherwise completely skill based game.

I understand the idea of using the table top game for a point of reference, but some things are not applicable to this game.

It's a completely different type of game, different medium, different genre. The only thing that is the same is the Intellectual Property.

They took liberties with the DHS and heat management. They took liberties with fire rates. Obviously they know some things from the Turn Based game do not work in a Real Time game.

Critical Hits is one of those things. They belong in games like X-Com or Mechwarrior Tactics, but not in games like MechWarrior Online or any Metaltech game like Earthsiege or Starsiege.

It takes skill out of the game and introduces a factor called luck. He even said it himself.

Here direct quote;

Quote

The attacker gets lucky...

Tell me that has a place in a Real Time Skill Based game?

Luck will always influence a game, but luck is in skill. Like a basketball player making a lucky full court shot, or a counter-strike player snapping 180º and getting a headshot in one bullet.

They aren't programmed % chances. They are things that happen for real that may or may not be repeatable.

Big difference.

Edited by Laokin, 22 November 2012 - 07:58 PM.

[TigrisMorte]

David Bradley, on 22 November 2012 - 04:27 PM, said:

...
Shh! It looks better when we're all working straight through a holiday.

No it does not. It looks better if after you have completed familial duties, happy spouse and relations, you then play through the holiday.

In fact any off hours, relax, refresh, and get back in there with full fire power on the next work day.

FWiiW, I may not agree 100% with the decisions but you have my 100% thanks regardless.

[TigrisMorte]

Laokin, on 22 November 2012 - 07:39 PM, said:

...
Battletech is a turn based, dice roll, table top game.

MWO is a REAL TIME, NOT DICE BASED, SIMULATOR, with an AIM to be competitive.
...where a battle can be turned by luck and not skill, in an otherwise completely skill based game.

I'll ignore all the things I edited out as they are simply wrong.

Look, dude, we could not do much with the POS monochrome green screen and 256k ram and no HD.
That is why a turn based game with dice simulating the random. We could not score keep while moving the little figures around. Now you get the full screen high res with the dice rolls behind the screen. It remains the same. In fact it is identical in scope, a simulation of the randomness of battle in an imaginary future.

[Sybreed]

David Bradley, on 22 November 2012 - 06:05 PM, said:

Thanks you for your responses guys. I assumed it was something along those lines, but just wanted to be sure. In any case, the numbers for double heat sinks are something that we will very likely be looking over once again.

Also, I just realized that I forgot to include something in my answer regarding how crit hits work. Weapons that deal damage over time, like lasers, work by quickly dealing tiny amounts of damage repeatedly over the lifetime of the laser beam. I think the medium laser does something like 0.20 - 0.25 damage repeatedly until it does the full 5 damage. Each of those micro damage hits have their own chance to crit. This means that lasers will have many chances to crit, but the crits will be spread out amongst the equipment in the location, and do little damage each time. Meanwhile an autocannon will have only one chance to crit per shot, but do all its damage to one piece of equipment (or applied multiple times if you get a double or triple crit).

what about LBX-10 AC? (sorry if spelled wrong).

I heard it's supposed to be a "crit seeker", is it currently working like this?

[Orzorn]

I'd like to thank you guys for responding. You get a lot of crap (and some of it a little justified) on the forums, but you work hard and do produce good results (you fixed the AC/2. That takes miracle workers). I think what a lot of people want is more clarification, specifically more detailed patch notes. I know that I would appreciate it greatly, because it reduces the work that testers have to do. Lots of the frustration comes from not knowing whether certain values are true or false, and then tons of testing time gets taken up just trying to figure out if the numbers changed. If we knew before hand, we could take it and run with it and do real numerical testing against balance, instead of data mining every patch to just build a map of what went on in the studio.

Sybreed, on 22 November 2012 - 07:52 PM, said:

what about LBX-10 AC? (sorry if spelled wrong).

I heard it's supposed to be a "crit seeker", is it currently working like this?

I'd imagine each pellet rolls for its own crits (which themselves could be 1x, 2x, or 3x). However, remember that LB 10-X pellets do 1 damage, so the most each pellet can do is 3 damage. Although, if it does work as I believe, that is definitely going to shred the internals if you land most of the pellets on a location.

Edited by Orzorn, 22 November 2012 - 08:00 PM.

[Laokin]

TigridMorte, on 22 November 2012 - 07:50 PM, said:

I'll ignore all the things I edited out as they are simply wrong.

Look, dude, we could not do much with the POS monochrome green screen and 256k ram and no HD.
That is why a turn based game with dice simulating the random. We could not score keep while moving the little figures around. Now you get the full screen high res with the dice rolls behind the screen. It remains the same. In fact it is identical in scope, a simulation of the randomness of battle in an imaginary future.

No it's not, the game you want is Mechwarrior Tactics. The Table Top Game converted to a Digital Format with nice HD graphics. It plays like the Table Top, but at the end of each battle, you get to watch all the moves happen in real time. MW:T is currently in beta, developed alongside of MW:O, you sound like a solid candidate, maybe that's what you should be playing instead.

That's not what MWO is. MWO is a 1st person skill based game, where the pilots skill matters. I'm not rolling a die to see if I hit you with my PPC. I'm aiming leading and firing and watching the projectile travel, it only misses depending on if I missed. Not if I rolled a 2.

The two games are completely different, which is why Mechwarrior Tactics exists.

If you can't see that, you're foolish.

In fact, there is no dice rolling at all in MWO outside of "Critical Hits" where as in the Table Top, you have to roll for EVERYTHING other than moves, which are limited by "hexes" that don't exist in MWO. [Because there is almost nothing similar between the two outside of the BattleTech Intellectual Property and Art Design.]

Random Criticals has been tried over and over in PvP 1st person real time games, and over and over they are forced to disabled them to facilitate competitive play.

See TF2. This game has critical hits, but it has an option to disable them, and everyone who is not a "Casual" plays with them off.

Period, cuz they ruin the game. They let teams win based on random "Luck" which is unpredictable and has nothing to do with the skill of the players.

If I'm better than you, I should win. I shouldn't be better than you and lose because you rolled a crit that blew up my gauss canon that took out my torso.

That's just stupid.

If I shoot a .22 bullet through the palm of your hand, it's going to be the same everytime, I'm not gonna get lucky and roll a crit that takes out your ribs too.

That's just lunacy and makes no sense.


In a turn based game, it makes all the sense in the world, since it's a game of strategy by weighing probability. MWO is a game of strategy by team coordination and pilot skill.

Probability has no place in this format.

Edited by Laokin, 22 November 2012 - 08:19 PM.

[Khavi Vetali]

Laokin, on 22 November 2012 - 07:39 PM, said:

15+15[to my rifle]+15+15[to my rifle]+20[from my rifle exploding]=80 damage in one strike. I'm basically dead, one shot to the torso.

You are incorrect here. This is not doing 80 damage in one strike. The initial shot hits your internal structure on your damaged arm. 15 damage. You crit three times to the location that the gauss rifle is in. The rifle currently has 10 max HP, it takes enough damage from the hit to make it explode, dealing 20 additional damage to your arm. The total damage inflicted is 35. Damage inflicted by critical hits to items stored in internal structure cannot carry over to other items, or the internal structure, or other locations on a mech unless that item is ammo or a gauss rifle exploding. CASE negates damage transfer entirely from both of the aforementioned items.


I'm not going to discuss if it is implemented well, but proper understanding of the mechanic is more helpful to your argument.

Edited by Khavi Vetali, 22 November 2012 - 08:15 PM.