52 replies to this topic

[WolvesX]

DHS must be buffed back to 2.0 at least.

Makes AS and HV more viable.

With light you earn more money, because they are cheaper and more easy to maintain.

[GioAvanti]

TheGrog, on 09 December 2012 - 04:20 AM, said:

Pretty much. A fair amount of the original idea of teired weapons was based around shooting something long ranged and often hot (PPC, LL, LRMs) and then falling back on a medium laser battery.

Plus the added problem due to a lack of range modifiers. In TT when you had something with a large laser facing down a bunch of medium lasers at least the large laser was easier to hit with. In MWO only the small variants are easier to hit with. Quite frankly, I suspect that it should be the large variants of lasers that have the shorter beam time instead of the small ones.

The charts in short: flamers, MGs, large (pulse) lasers, PPCs, and all ER variants thereof suck to varying degrees with the large laser being the best of the lot. That fits with my play experience pretty well. When was the last time you saw a LPL? I tried using them and the heat killed me even with DHSs. A pair of them were literally the only weapons I could fire, and that kind of damage output won't cut it at 300 m and closer unless you are a damn better shot than I. Flamers and MGs are just annoyance weapons, and I think 'why didn't you mount a small laser'? I occasonally see PPCs, or more rarely the ER weapons, but the heat demands limit them to harassment sniping at best and PPCs projectiles are just too hard to aim at range. Once they act like actual, you know, ENERGY weapons instead of being slower than many AC shells they may be worth noticing. But right now when I see a PPC mech show on the target data I look for a more dangerous target first.

On the flip side, how many mechs do you see with all the medium lasers and SRMs they can fit?

Ehhhh I use a 3 PPC Awesome..... look over me at your own peril....

[Apoc1138]

GioAvanti, on 09 December 2012 - 06:39 AM, said:

Ehhhh I use a 3 PPC Awesome..... look over me at your own peril....

exactly... I have a 4 PPC atlas build that can and has one shot a hunchback, and takes arms of most things in a single shot... let me do that 4 times in a row, go on, please, I beg you...

[TigrisMorte]

MustrumRidcully, on 08 December 2012 - 10:48 AM, said:

...
TL;DR Call to Action - Where do we need to improve things? (Assuming we do not want further changes to the heat sink mechanics)
...

Just put everything to book values. Make it do exactly what the design intended instead of "improving on Shakespeare".
This does not mean fire once every 10 seconds BTW. That is just bad math. It means if you want to triple ROF then divide the damage by 3 and the heat by 3.
Oh and "LOS for a scifi based license????" is the reasonECM is doing what they decided.
lots of psycho decisions made on this one.

[Wolf Clearwater]

FerretGR, on 08 December 2012 - 03:47 PM, said:

Indeed... guy writes a thesis about how Mustrum should **** off because Mustrum wrote a thesis. Oh my.

I'm glad Mustrum remembers what it means to be a beta tester and takes it seriously. What do you guys think it is we're supposed to be doing here, stomping around for the sake of stomping around? Being nothing more than a number counting toward server load numbers? If that's all you want to do, knock yourself out, but personally, I'm glad there are folks like Mustrum willing to do more... folks like him, using data analysis, have helped to tweak this game since the devs opened the doors. I think he's doing great work and I hope he keeps it up!

MustrumRidcully, thanks for the great analysis. THIS IS what Beta testing should be all about, analyzing and testing the data and playability to make the game better, and more fun all around. In general I agree with your analysis, but I think the medium laser should stay where it is at because the "medium laser is the workhorse of the Inner Sphere" -from one of the original Battletech box sets I had as a kid, and nerfing it's capability makes stock mechs less viable. The large pulse laser, etc, definitely needs a buff though.... I take one (large pulse) simply because I enjoy hearing the sound of it fire

[Targetloc]

MustrumRidcully, on 09 December 2012 - 02:06 AM, said:

I didn't forget range. Why do you think the weapons are sorted the way they are?
If the game was well balanced*, we should see a downward sloping line from the shortest range to the longest range weapon. The exact angle of the slope is something that would need to be determined.

Very important point here to the posters that think range makes direct comparisons pointless.


Glad you're still fighting the good fight and checking your mashed potatoes for broken glass, Mustrum.

[Vlad Ward]

Unfortunately for us mathy types, now that real team vs team fights are back, it's rare for any match to devolve in such a way that people are just firing all of their weapons on cooldown at one another for any period of time.

Per-shot damage has become more important as more Mechs utilize cover. Range has become extremely important as Mechs rarely close to within 200m before the fight is almost over. Most importantly, for Laser-type weapons, low Time-On-Target per shot has become very important as maintaining a beam on a target for 1 second is 1 second where you're exposed and not moving back behind cover.

In competitive games, the Small and Medium lasers have become fairly moot. They're mop-up weapons, used mainly after the outcome of a battle has already been decided.

The current kings of the Team battlefield appear to be the AC/5, AC/20, Gauss Rifle, PPC, and Large Laser (in certain chassis).

[aspect]

Not going to wade in to this one, but just wanted to say thanks for making the original post and collating all the data.

Apoc1138, on 09 December 2012 - 06:56 AM, said:

exactly... I have a 4 PPC atlas build that can and has one shot a hunchback, and takes arms of most things in a single shot... let me do that 4 times in a row, go on, please, I beg you...

Skip to 0:40...yes I know I am a terrible shot.

Edited by aspect, 09 December 2012 - 09:49 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Vlad Ward, on 09 December 2012 - 09:42 AM, said:

Unfortunately for us mathy types, now that real team vs team fights are back, it's rare for any match to devolve in such a way that people are just firing all of their weapons on cooldown at one another for any period of time.

Per-shot damage has become more important as more Mechs utilize cover. Range has become extremely important as Mechs rarely close to within 200m before the fight is almost over. Most importantly, for Laser-type weapons, low Time-On-Target per shot has become very important as maintaining a beam on a target for 1 second is 1 second where you're exposed and not moving back behind cover.

In competitive games, the Small and Medium lasers have become fairly moot. They're mop-up weapons, used mainly after the outcome of a battle has already been decided.

The current kings of the Team battlefield appear to be the AC/5, AC/20, Gauss Rifle, PPC, and Large Laser (in certain chassis).

You may have much more experience with 8vs8 games than me, but the ones I was involved in so far still had heavy investment in short range fights - ECM didn't really make it easier to rely on long-range weaponry (particularly missiles), and if you locate the enemy later, you tend to be closer.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 09 December 2012 - 02:03 PM.

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

Nice thread, pray it doesn't get the axe. Copy all that data in just case, pal.

[MustrumRidcully]

Bluten, on 09 December 2012 - 02:07 PM, said:

Nice thread, pray it doesn't get the axe. Copy all that data in just case, pal.

I don't worry about that, the past threads haven't disappeared either (except in the depths of the Closed Beta and Patch Feedback forums).

[MustrumRidcully]

Here's some additional reading that all directly or indirectly are affected by the current weapon balance and heat mechanics in MW:O:
http://mwomercs.com/...s-on-your-mechs
http://mwomercs.com/...or-the-solution
http://mwomercs.com/...torward-20-dhs/
http://mwomercs.com/...hotfix-on-ppcs/
http://mwomercs.com/...ng-to-see-first
http://mwomercs.com/...0-dhs-20-again/
http://mwomercs.com/...r-a-new-player/
http://mwomercs.com/...it-worth-taking
http://mwomercs.com/...-extremely-good
http://mwomercs.com/...e-all-dhs-to-20

And as bonus material, a conspiracy theory:
http://mwomercs.com/...-put-dhs-to-20/
And how to argue or not to argue:
http://mwomercs.com/...in-an-arguments

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 11 December 2012 - 04:41 AM.

[Aym]

What's the base-line weapon effectiveness you use to determine which need buffs and which need nerfs? I personally feel the planned buffs to many weapons are increasing the pace of combat too much considering the incoming clan mech, MASC, and other developments in tech. I'd like to see our current tech level closer to the pace of combat back in July and let it speed up a bit next summer. Your thoughts?

[MustrumRidcully]

Aym, on 11 December 2012 - 06:28 AM, said:

What's the base-line weapon effectiveness you use to determine which need buffs and which need nerfs? I personally feel the planned buffs to many weapons are increasing the pace of combat too much considering the incoming clan mech, MASC, and other developments in tech. I'd like to see our current tech level closer to the pace of combat back in July and let it speed up a bit next summer. Your thoughts?

I based it on existing good weapons, but not too good weapons, generally speaking. I believe the AC/5 may have been an anchor point for me. I lowered the Medium Laser strength a bit, for example, instead of raising all the adjacent weapons to its level. And I basically "optimized" for the 20 second / 160 damage TET - the curves are smoothest in tha time frame, so to speak.

But it's the general problem of Battletech in this age - new tech makes combat faster, as you can carry and cool more weapons - but your max armour doesn't change. It would have been a good idea to set the desired pace of combat at the "endgame" MW:O will have - it seems foolish to feel forced to revamp your combat system when Clan Tech arrives.

Or they could have set the game in a time period with less or no transition elements. 3025 or 3055 Battletech perhaps? Though I wouldn't even mind a customized "kitbash" Battletech in terms of tech - I would like to see Autocannons and LBX and Ultra AutoCannons and ER Lasers alongside regular lasers and pulse lasers and all that, with all the tech balanced against each other - but have the topic of the main conflict be the Clan Wars or the Succession Wars. But I doubt that would have flown with battletech hardcore fans.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 11 December 2012 - 06:53 AM.

[shabowie]

Streak 2 still seems out of line efficient, given that it is one of the few weapons that actually do hit 100%, and not a known flawed assumption made for the sake of comparison.

Edited by shabowie, 11 December 2012 - 07:06 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

shabowie, on 11 December 2012 - 07:02 AM, said:

Streak 2 still seems out of line efficient, given that it is one of the few weapons that actually do hit 100%, and not a known flawed assumption made for the sake of comparison.

I agree. It's also an example of how efficiency calculations are still in their "infancy" - they give some useful information, I think, but you need to add some context to make it really meaningful - once we've figured t hese things out, we could go back and improve the math beind the charts, accounting for such factors.

I currently don't even want to bother pointing out that LRMs and SRMs play in a different league from the ballistics and energy weapons - it's obvious, and even if people said pre ECM that LRMs were op, I don't think anyone would have said SRMs are twice as good as medium lasers or AC/5.. Something is clearly missing in trying to relate LRMs and SRMs. Though we know what kind of factor we're missing, and we can try to figure out if this factor exists, or if there is something missing.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 11 December 2012 - 07:23 AM.

[Scratx]

aspect, on 09 December 2012 - 09:49 AM, said:

Skip to 0:40...yes I know I am a terrible shot.

OW. I didn't even know that was possible. Poor hunchies...

[Aym]

MustrumRidcully, on 11 December 2012 - 06:49 AM, said:

I based it on existing good weapons, but not too good weapons, generally speaking. I believe the AC/5 may have been an anchor point for me. I lowered the Medium Laser strength a bit, for example, instead of raising all the adjacent weapons to its level. And I basically "optimized" for the 20 second / 160 damage TET - the curves are smoothest in tha time frame, so to speak.

But it's the general problem of Battletech in this age - new tech makes combat faster, as you can carry and cool more weapons - but your max armour doesn't change. It would have been a good idea to set the desired pace of combat at the "endgame" MW:O will have - it seems foolish to feel forced to revamp your combat system when Clan Tech arrives.

Ah but aren't we on the same page that for the sake of MWO clantech should not be lifted from TT values? It shouldn't be straight up superior, but rather different?

[Apoc1138]

MustrumRidcully, on 11 December 2012 - 07:21 AM, said:

I agree. It's also an example of how efficiency calculations are still in their "infancy" - they give some useful information, I think, but you need to add some context to make it really meaningful - once we've figured t hese things out, we could go back and improve the math beind the charts, accounting for such factors.

I currently don't even want to bother pointing out that LRMs and SRMs play in a different league from the ballistics and energy weapons - it's obvious, and even if people said pre ECM that LRMs were op, I don't think anyone would have said SRMs are twice as good as medium lasers or AC/5.. Something is clearly missing in trying to relate LRMs and SRMs. Though we know what kind of factor we're missing, and we can try to figure out if this factor exists, or if there is something missing.

because, although streaks do always hit, they don't always hit the same location because it's random... with ballistics it is possible to consistently hit the same loc, making ballistics arguably more effective, same with lasers (I can't do it but some people can)

the problem is that this factor will differ from person to person... some people can learn to lead and hit with a single-big-hit type weapon, other people find it easier to track with hitscan DOT weapons, others just like to boat lock on weapons... and with current netcode / lag / connection issues for some people I can understand why

[MaddMaxx]

Although I prefer the numbers as they actually come out of my Mech and tear into and destroy the enemy, I do enjoy the Charts.

Edited by MaddMaxx, 11 December 2012 - 09:06 AM.