Artisan Archive
Thread: New Powerups on TC-5 *listing and test results*
Helios_SOE wrote:
There is a lot of constructive and, more importantly, objective feedback here. Please continue to post your findings and impressions, especially for the mid to high level weapons as well.
Thank you guys for taking time to try these things out and for reporting your findings here.
Message Edited by Helios_SOE on 04-07-2005 07:21 AM
A quick idea here. I think that you are on the right path with the idea for trade offs durring crafting and slicing...but here is an idea for powerups. Create less of a margin to meet people halfway with these trade offs since they are in fact short term additions to the weapon. This is not my idea that has been posted. But I am looking more objectively into the future of the game and interactivity. Make them shorter usage to creat more economy. Might bea lame idea but I have been trying to figure out how to bring our crafters into this game more. If they have to work more and sell more and experiment to sell the same person a variety of powerups due to different trade offs they could be more involved.
Helios_SOE wrote:
Animi wrote:Thanks for the info.I'm sad to see they've made damage and speed opposing pairs. It seems to me that increasing one at the expense of the other negates the benefit of the powerup altogether.We'll have to see what the DPS numbers are with that type of powerup equipped and unequipped.That's not altogether the case. It does, like you said, equalize the potential DPS of the weapon. Depending on how often you are likely to hit your target, however, you may want a faster firing weapon. In other words, if you tend to miss alot you would want to fire more often thus giving you more opportunities to land a hit (statistically speaking). This is not to say the numbers (or the resources) on the powerups don't need to be adjusted (they do), but that they were designed with more or less equal tradeoffs in mind.
We need to balance our weapons by the full potential of a weapon's power (including crafting, slicing & powerups). In tandem with that effort, we are also trying to make sure that you don't absolutely need a slice or powerup (or both) to use your weapon effectively. Not to say that these things won't give you an overall edge in combat (because they should), but they can't be "make-or-break" portions of the weapon. This is why you won't see a "free" 30% dmg increase on a powerup any more.
All of that being said, I look forward to your ideas. We will most likely not be making sweeping changes to how the powerups work, but if you have some good ideas (with supporting arguments) as to how the system might be tweaked without breaking weapon balance, I'll be happy to listen to them.
I think the power up could be something that you can apply or not to your weapon, like a add on, switchable at any moment.
Like a equipment that when you wanna it acting you add it to your weapon and then it is "turned" on.
You will receive some bonus, but at same time the condition of your armor will decrease faster than normal.
special cost, speed delay or damage.
When you wanna change, you simply take it off.
And for every weapon has ur personnal pup.
It has a condition not based on charges, but in durability points.
Helios_SOE wrote:
Animi wrote:
Thanks for the info.
I'm sad to see they've made damage and speed opposing pairs. It seems to me that increasing one at the expense of the other negates the benefit of the powerup altogether.
We'll have to see what the DPS numbers are with that type of powerup equipped and unequipped.
That's not altogether the case. It does, like you said, equalize the potential DPS of the weapon. Depending on how often you are likely to hit your target, however, you may want a faster firing weapon.
Lets forget the statistics of it, and look at the tactics behind it (I'm kind of surprised that Helios didn't jump on that aspect 1st). I see mypostCU templateas being Rifleman w/ Carbines and having 2 basic functions to support my team;Sniper & Supporting Fire.
As a Sniper, my job is to either kill the target or soften it up as much as possible before we're forced to engage, and to do it quietly. Every shot I fire is one more chance that I'll be discovered. With that in mind, I need every shot to hit and hit HARD. I don't care how often I can fire, as long as it hurts when I do fire. Give me a fist full of damage PUs for that job,I couldn't care less about my rate of fire.
As a support gunner, my job is to screw with the enemy to make thejobs of my teammates easier. Threaten shots, posture changes, interrupts, whatever the situation calls for (and the devs let me get 
). In order to be effective in this role, I don't need to deal a lot of damage, but I need to be able to react to targets ofopportunity and I need to do it NOW, not in 2 seconds.
There will be times when all I care about is raw DPS, but one of the stated goals of the CU is to make combat more involving and to bring tactics into play. I do hope the days of pitting massed brute force against400k ham creaturesis comming to a close, and the days of working around the problem are on the horizon.
Helios_SOE wrote:
I'd like to hear some of your opinions/suggestions on the resources used for the powerups.
I sincerely appreciate the question.
I'm at work and unable to get to my notes. Having said that, could you please explain the extreme shift to using conductivity for an Artisan item? I am somewhat selfish in the fact that as a veteran player I've spent 21 months of my game time collecting the best resources for powerups only to have them invalidated by the current TC5 conductivity line for experimentation?
IF you want conductivity to be a factor then make it the only factor in a certain schematic. I would much rather see some powerups requiring specific resource type requirements for *special powerups*instead of simply changing experimentation and invlidating all resources every collected specifically for powerups.
In light of the fact that armor and most weapons are now outside our scope, this would be nice to at least get an explanation as to a fundamental shift in experimentation with no basis visible.
Fivo Asia
Helios_SOE wrote:
I'd like to hear some of your opinions/suggestions on the resources used for the powerups.
Should make the resources for power up more in line with weapons there used on
range
OQ codn
like gem copper
melee
SR UT
iron steel
gernades
PE oq
radio petro fuel
Message Edited by RagNoRock5x on 04-07-2005 01:40 PM
Helios_SOE wrote:
I'd like to hear some of your opinions/suggestions on the resources used for the powerups.
Overall Quality was the only factor is power ups before, yet now it isn't even the most important stat. This is quite a drastic change to all current power up crafters, and will force them to start again to master that market. However, I really like having more variety, soI'd suggest merely bumping up the effect OQ has to 66% at least; perhaps even 75%. I, also, like the idea of making the resources specific to the type of power up made (allows some specialization based on resources available). ie:
Ranged powerups - OQ 66%, CD 33%
Melee powerups - OQ 66%, SR 33% (or UT 33%)
Grenades- OQ66%, PE 33%
Artisan has been pretty much an OQ based profession in the past as most items relied heavily on OQ.
Edit: I'd even support having the positive effectiveness 100% OQ, and making the negative efficiency affected by the other resource attribute (ie %OQ, %CD of any percentage). As long as we have two experimentation lines, it will not make a huge difference anyhow.
Message Edited by Star_Ranger on 04-07-2005 03:21 PM
ScyllaGivi wrote:
Stop being so selfish...
johnautry613 wrote:
ScyllaGivi wrote:
Stop being so selfish...
first time I have ever heard math called selfish.......
johnautry613 wrote:
VemaGara wrote:Accuracy is not a factor. In both examples, you would miss the same average amount of times, so the Average damage caused at any point on a time line is statistically the same.
Accuracy is a factor. Many specials have effects other than damage.I think you missed it. I am talking about a pure trade off between damage and speed, accuracy is a constant. You will miss the same proportion in any situation.
So in any situation where dps is unchanged, then the average damge at any given point in time is equal on any time horizon. This is due to the fact that ALL other factors are equal.
You missed my point. Your mistake is viewing DPS of powerups narrowly, in strict mathematical terms. In those terms, they do nothing. That is because they are divorced from their context. Placed in their context, they become tactical choices. Other parts of the system become directly affected by those choices, but those choices can't be measure by the powerup stats alone.
For instance, if I land a blind, I can lower the DPS of my opponent. The sooner that I do this, the lower his overall DPS becomes. The faster that I land a DOT in a fight, the more damage I do via the DOT. If my job is to knock a deadly nightsister prone, how valuable does accuracy become over damage?
johnautry613 wrote:
VemaGara wrote:
Accuracy is not a factor. In both examples, you would miss the same average amount of times, so the Average damage caused at any point on a time line is statistically the same.
Accuracy is a factor. Many specials have effects other than damage.
I think you missed it. I am talking about a pure trade off between damage and speed, accuracy is a constant. You will miss the same proportion in any situation.
So in any situation where dps is unchanged, then the average damge at any given point in time is equal on any time horizon. This is due to the fact that ALL other factors are equal.
I think I can make it a little clearer.
Ifyou miss 10% of the time, you're going to do 10% less damage in the long run, doesn't matter if your weapon does 100 damage 1second reload or 1000 damage 10 second reload, its 100 DPS for both.
Example: Firing either weapon for 100 seconds you get
100 shots, 100 damage,10,000 damage possible, 10 missed shots, 9000 actualdamage
10 shots, 1000 damage each, 10,000 damage possible, 1 missed shot, 9000 actual damage
See, its all the same for DAMAGE
Now if you're talking about applying state effects, you want to apply them as fast as possible, so DPS doesn't matter, just weapon speed and accuracy
Just to set the tone -- There's always a chance I got the math wrong or I messed up the tests somehow -- that being said
From the experimentation I've done the initial balance between the two powerup stats is pretty much an even trade -- for a given percentage increase in one you get about the same percentage decrease in the other.
When you experiment the conductivity line (Effectiveness) you advance the increase statistic but you do not change the proportion between it and the decrease statistic. So the decrease statistic goes "up" too.
When you experiment the potential energy line (Efficiency) you make the proportion between the increase line and the decrease line larger.
Some examples: Assuming perfect resources and great experimentation successes.
The increase statistic assembly value will be 30 (10% increase), decrease assembly value 30 (10% decrease).
Put 10 experimentation points into the potential energy line and the final values will be 30 and 0. Maximizing that line the best a 10 point artisan could make would be a 10% increase and 0% decrease.
Put 10 experimentation points into the conductivity line and the values will both be 100. So maximizing that line the best a 10 point artisan could make would be 33.33% increase and 33.33% decrease.
Under this system a 14 point artisan could produce a 19.3% increase powerup with no decrease. Maximizing the other statistic, a 14 point artisan could produce a 33.3% increase powerup with a 14% decrease in the other statistic.
In practice rounding during the math won't make it exact -- but that's the idea. Also, if my server is any example, there will never be any perfect resources. 95% minerals and 85% chemicals are the best that we've ever had.
Of the proposals made so far:
I favor making the stating percentage decrease less than the percentage increase. I know from experience that people want a clear benefit from an optional, temporary item like a powerup. Decreasing the percentage still allows gameplay decisions but makes powerups somewhat more attractive to players -- that balances the crafters needs for marketable items.
I do not favor making powerups last longer. Powerups running out are one of the few places in the game where there is anything like conserving ammunition. That's an important tactical element. While you do have to watch out for HAM constraining your specials use, waiting to recover is different from having to "reload".
I do not favor making powerups depend on more resources based on the type of powerup. I agree it makes a better fiction -- but all the different kinds of resources a crafter needs fill up more houses than most crafters can manage. Since many artisans are also masters in other crafts the situation is compounded. I don't think the value of having the resources make more sense is worth the labor of managing them all.