The English translation to that word is probably clusterfuck.
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The English translation to that word is probably clusterfuck.
Quote:
Originally Posted by William Antrim
My first thought as I read the German term.
"Hurry up and wait".
To be fair, last time the community whined about something till they got input, the entire PSI skill was mangled across the board for all classes rendering it useless for all classes except ppu.
Also, I don't bother helping out with anything. I've tried. If I send in anything to @exploits pretty sure it doesn't even get looked at.
So I'll just hurry up and wait with everyone else.
Let me add a little bit more detail to Bragi's very nice post.
The current balancing of Neocron can simply not be taken as a reference/foundation for discussions because there is no balancing. It is all over the place to say the least. Let's have a look at the TL vs DPM curve:
Attachment 12316
the y axis being a set of weapons, the x axis being the damage per minute. Note that the tl spacing between weapons is not always equidistant, because we do not have a weapon each two tls. The tl of the weapon's is increasing from top to bottom. One clearly observes that there is not hierarchy. It is completely broken.
So, as pointed out by Bragi, to create a foundation for discussion, we are first of all fixing the dpm hierarchy so we have a foundation for discussions where indeed there should be a hierarchy between weapons depending on their tl. We did not change the characteristics of the weapons (frequency and such) we only changed their damage per shot. The intended TL vs DPM curve which will go into T#186 looks as follows:
Attachment 12317
the y axis being the same set of weapons as before, the x axis being the damage per minute. Note that the tl spacing between weapons is not always equidistant, because we do not have a weapon each two tls. This time there is a clear hierarchy between weapons.
Both plots were made for one and the same skill setup. We also investigated whether different setups destroy the intended hierarchy. They dont :)
As some of you know we intended to do this also in R#185 on Sparta. The reason it failed there, as stated before, is that the DPM does non linearly depend on the players setup, because the player's setup affects the frequency as well as the damage output of a weapon. We now have the possibility to fix the weapon frequency and thus make it independent of a player's setup to avoid this non-linear dependency.
Our "Balancing Visualizer" takes into account a lot. In fact it uses the same calculations as Neocron does. However the problem is a multidimensional one (consisting of many parameters("Stellschrauben")). Visualizing the dependency of the dpm curve on all parameters at once is not possible, so we can always only look at certain dependencies and investigate how changes evolve. We have taken great care to make sure we figured out the main dependencies, but in the end you only know if you were right once you put your assumptions to test, which is what we are going to do very soon(TM)!
In case there are people in the community which deal with correlations, data visualization, big data and such on a daily basis, please feel free to apply to help us analyzing the data and developing good models to model it!
Good read.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alduin
And holy hell.. Didnt think that SH had such a crazy DPS.. Especially compared to BHG..
Just to be clear, these graphs show Damage Per Minute and not per second.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dropout
Im at work, so I just read it fast, but thanks for clearing it up ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Trivaldi
So you're saying melee has a chance!Quote:
Originally Posted by Alduin
http://youtu.be/zMRrNY0pxfM
Did you change aimspeed /range either? More charts please! :D
Theoretically by the maths every weapon should have a chance to do similar dpm to every other weapon around its tl. That's the whole point of using maths as a yard stick and not the opinions of players.
Pftt, you people and your 'balance'
What I want to see is the shiny new textures. Please devs, give me some screenshots, I beg of you!
Well, its very intresting. Especialli if all exist weapons in game will work (dont know how its now, but on Terra and on start of Titan few weapons was not work. When shot they just waste ammo, and nothin more).
The major problem with this is the difficulty level of the weapons (how hard it is to use).Quote:
Originally Posted by William Antrim
Weapons like Dev and Libby are not easy to use. They need to do some more damage to make up for that.
IMO skill should be rewarded. The harder to user, the more damage.
Or do you want all weapons to act the exact same?
Just a quick question so I can hopefully understand this effort and end goal a little better… Please excuse any misunderstandings.
To me this seems more like weapon damage output equalization. Basically trying to get all weapons to have the same damage output by TL, stepping up or down with TL increase/decrease.
Once this foundation is complete, will there then be a modifier applied to each class or other identifier? For example: If the equalization gives an APU and a H-C GenTank the same DPM with like TL weapons (APU using Holy Lightning TL 101 | GenTank using Ravager TL 100) wont that lead to even greater class unbalancing?
I don’t expect an APU and Gentank to be able to stand toe-to-toe, hit ‘fire’ at the same time and both drop simultaneously. I also realize each class or player type needs to use differing tactics, but in this example, I see no tactic where the APU has a chance. The GenTank is faster, has more armor, and has more resists. The GenTank also has the highest TL weapons available. I see the same situation with other classes as well… Spy vs. GenTank: Range not an advantage anymore but at least the Spy will be able to stealth to get the hell out of there :)
I am just trying to get a better understanding of the full thought process and end goal. I agree you have to standardize the DPM to start since it is the foundation.
Fixed frequency has been mentioned as well. So once the damage has been standardized will the balance be attempted by adjusting frequency or even a class type modifier?
Modifier example: H-C GenTank DPM modifier = 1.0 | APU DPM modifier 1.25
Frequency example: H-C Gentank Ravager shots per minute = 120 | APU Holy Lightning shots per minute = 150
Then it’s not really Damage Per Minute (DPM) anymore.
So is this just more accurately described as Weapon Damage Standardization by Tech Level as a foundation to begin Class balancing?
Sorry if this makes no sense and I have no idea what I’m talking about… I am also at work trying to prep for a meeting but wanted to throw this out so I can simply understand this whole idea/process/goal better.
Thank You!
Don't turn this in to a carebear game. Skill is the #1 thing that makes this game unique.
If everything becomes linear and "easy" to use, the game will die for sure, and it'll just be another mmofps shooter out there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dropout
That is where the aiming skill (weapon lore) comes into play. The tighter the reticle closes the more accurate the gun is in theory. With so many different styles of weapon to account for (e.g burst beam and aoe) then other factors will obviously play a part but you have to start with the basics. When the dpm curve is balanced you can begin to add other modifiers according to these proposed changes. Some weapons will need to be toned down invariably as others may need to be boosted. Freezers for example. This range of guns will be potentially thrown right out of whack by the changes. Their damage currently is pitiful and the freeze (as we know) is terrible. In this case no freeze is a good thing, as we all most likely agree. However suddenly if these changes are made then freezers will have a huge boost to damage and maintain SOME freeze capability. The question here is, is this too much? Is it a game breaker. That is where the community comes in.
What else do you propose? What other solution is there to create balancing in the game? the game is already suffering lack of population due to the incredibly poor balance it has. There are only a small handful of guns that are viable. Changing the game to accomodate more guns means more people can fight one another with their chosen weapon from a much earlier time. More viable weapons means more pvp. I dont know how it would be otherwise.Quote:
Originally Posted by RUn3
There are players in this game even after 18 months of the server being up who have amassed thousands of parts and built hundreds of guns. These personal armouries are sat waiting for the balancing to hit and then the resurge in population that everyone is waiting for ought to finally happen.
If the balancing is not put right that would be the death knell for nc, I can stake my oath on it.
Cant be arsed to write a long post about the different weapons characteristics because some weapons are really easy to use and have quite high TL (Dissy,BHG9). This post here sums it up perfectly.
Also, did you take into account that it is really hard to get certain resist types to a high level? What about fixing hit detection for beam/laser/freeze weapons and class specific resist and health efficiency first? Oh, and make PA, Armor and Skillpoint resists worth the same maybe? What about the hilarious efficiency of PPU-Shields against certain weapons (FL,PE)?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dropout
Sry, but this is the wrong approach. I just can't imagine a TL/DPM First Love being viable when theres a TL/DPM Dissy around.
Fix stuff first, then lower the efficiency of high level shields, lower overall damage of all weapons and then adjust every single weapon until it can compete.
Though it can seem like an interesting idea, there are some serious problems with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dropout
Firstly, you over-reward higher skill (bear with me) and over-penalise lower skill.
What I mean is that we want skill to be rewarded equally for all weapons. Two people of equal skill but different weapons will not be fair. Nor would two people of lower skill. It's the raw skill we want to focus on.
Secondly, people will choose a smaller selection of weapons because they are either too hard to use or out damage others. This limits a player choice of weapons.
That does not mean we want it to be easy. Some weapons are too easy to use, others are harder. The aiming performance of each weapon can be changed but that is a rather distant stage at this point. We want to look at the numbers first.
This is a base-line to work from. Each weapon class (pistol, rifle, APU, etc.) can be altered independently of each other and will be at a latter stage depending on the rest of the changes to implants and armour.Quote:
Originally Posted by hudsonbeck
The numbers are a total DPM, factoring the instant damage and the frequency. We have fixed the frequency of the weapons so that sub-skills do not inconsistently alter DPM as they vary. We then balanced the instant damage so that each weapon fitted to the curve.
The armour system is certainly going to get overhauled. The focus with the DPM work does not take much of the current game into assumption because the game will be worked around it, or rather for it.Quote:
Originally Posted by slith
With just these changes, yes, that's right, because of how the implants currently work (or don't).Quote:
Sry, but this is the wrong approach. I just can't imagine a TL/DPM First Love being viable when theres a TL/DPM Dissy around.
We want to work from the ground up. Hotfixing everything backwards will lead us to a tangled mess.Quote:
Fix stuff first, then lower the efficiency of high level shields, lower overall damage of all weapons and then adjust every single weapon until it can compete.
We are looking at PPU related changes in parallel with this, as well the other things you mentioned. Everything is up for review and possible change if necessary.
One patch isn't gonna fix it all Falk.
I will say that I know where he is coming from. The current PvP situation on retail is not what we want and some tangible changes sooner rather than later are desired by much of the community.
It might be possible to make some temporary changes while the game is being reworked, but that is not a promise and I would have to find out if it were feasible.
How are Mob "weapons" affected by this change?
Will their damage output based on "Level" or "TL" of the mob calculated with the new formula too?
Without going into details, mob weapon performance is determined by their rank. They too have been balanced, though this is currently limited to NPC versions of player weapons (Ie. guns and spells).Quote:
Originally Posted by Sophie
The hopper man! what about the hopper!Quote:
Originally Posted by Bragi
And freaking Persi! Yeah yeah, I know they are 120/120 but still.. Damn!Quote:
Originally Posted by MayhemMichael
As you can see there are several other problems we have to tackle while balancing all the weapons. There are bugs which influence the DPM of weapons and monsters in the game. As an example you can see that some APU spells are currently not working correctly. This makes it a lot hard to balance things correctly. Such bugs needed to get eliminated first.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dropout
Persi damage seems to be bugged as well (personal opinion - not based on valid research). At least some of its attacks do more damage than they should. This could have a million possible reasons. PVE balancing is something we will look at at a later stage of the project.
Sorry if this de-rails the thread a bit, but as you're talking about mob damage right now:
Imho, more important than balancing mob damage would be to finally fix the bug of invisible mobs/invisible mob shots.
This bug is around way too long and killing fun (at least mine) hunting.
Can't count the times I start burning without seeing any shot or getting killed by a WB that only could be seen after a relog.
And it can't be a local issue when 2 team mates can't see them either.
Again, sorry for derailing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pottburter
Please raise a fresh Bug Report with all relevant information and as much detail as you can provide. This is not something related to the next patch/balancing and needs to be reported correctly so we can deal with it accordingly. We believed this to be improved in a previous patch but obviously this is sadly not the case. Thanks!
EDIT: Quick chat with Alduin. Correction to the above...
We believed this issue had been somewhat improved (not fixed) in a previous patch, obviously this is still causing issues. I've re-opened the existing report, please post all relevant information there so we can take another look at this issue. Thanks.
Uh yes, dont get me wrong, IMO PvE balance should have a very low priority.Quote:
Originally Posted by Haliax
As long as its not forgotten.
Those fuckers have insta-buttraped me more than once.. :p
You guys (DEV team) should consider shutting down access to Titan and force all players to Test Server once you deploy the patch.
That is a great idea tbh.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kame
Last patch when they needed stress testing they offered double xp which got a bunch of people to play. The problem is even in the current community you have loads of people who dont actually know what the test server is or even how to use it. When they did the stress test there were still people going - "where are my characters?" and "how do i level up?"
While it would be good having all of them for a stress test it could be both a blessing and a curse due to the actual people you get logging on, some could get pissed off and leave and others might be a tad difficult to deal with. :)
If it was briefed in advance that this was the intention though I think it would work a treat.